“Ask a Lawyer Day” will be held on Saturday, April 27, from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. We hope you will be able to volunteer again this year to contribute to the ongoing success of this event. We are seeking lawyer volunteers to answer phones at the Illinois Bar Center in Springfield from 9-11:30 a.m. and/or 11:30–2 p.m. Continental breakfast and lunch will be provided by the ISBA.

Please complete this form if you are able to volunteer your time and expertise again this year. You can fax the completed form to (217) 525-9063 attention Tracy Potter, or you may call Tracy at (800) 252-8908 or email your response to tpotter@isba.org.

Asked and Answered

By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC

Q. I am a partner in a 17 attorney firm in Madison, Wisconsin. We are a business law firm and we have 10 partners and seven associates. We are managed by a managing partner, one of my partners, and he also practices law. We pay him his standard client bill rate for his non-billable time spent on law firm management. For the last couple of years his non-billable hours spent managing the firm have been increasing to the point where he is now spending 50% of his total time - 1,000 hours a year - managing the firm. This has caused tension in the firm and my partners and I are concerned. I would appreciate your thoughts.

Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas L. Kilbride announced Wednesday the expansion of an e-project that allows attorneys, parties and appellate justices to view, access and work electronically from the official record of cases on appeal in the Fourth Judicial District.

The Supreme Court has authorized Logan County to allow the electronic transfer of the official court record of cases on appeal filed after July 1, 2013. Logan joins Adams and Moultrie counties in the Fourth Judicial District and 14 other counties that participate in the pilot project.

Since he became Chief Justice in 2010, Justice Kilbride has pledged to make the Illinois courts more user friendly by implementing improvements in technology. Since then, the Supreme Court has opened avenues for e-filing, creating a special E-Business Committee in June 2011; announcing in October 2012 statewide standards and new and amended Supreme Court rules that will allow all courts in Illinois to begin electronic filing in civil cases; and greatly expanding the pilot project that allows the e-filing of the trial record in the Appellate courts.

"Logan County becomes the 17th county in Illinois that will file the trial record on appeal electronically," Chief Justice Kilbride said. "We've come a ways since announcing the first two counties to participate in the pilot project back in 2011.

"We give a big thank you to all who have helped us and the courts make progress."

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin has announced the formation of a bipartisan screening committee to assist in selecting Federal District Court Judges for the Southern District of Illinois. It has been announced that a judicial vacancy will open up in the Southern District in December, and the immediate task of the screening committee is to review applications and make recommendations to Durbin for filling current and future vacancies.

The Illinois State Bar Association has announced winners of its Lawyers Feeding Illinois food and fundraising campaign whose goal was to raise at least one million meals. Lawyer teams and more than 2,000 donors raised in excess of 1,270,000 meals for the benefit of Illinoisans facing hunger in a statewide campaign held Feb. 18-March 1.

The competition winners will be honored at a ceremony on May 8 at the ISBA’s Chicago Regional Office. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, whose office supported the campaign, will be on hand to help present the awards.

Law firms, individual lawyers and organizations to receive awards are:

The Illinois Supreme Court has announced that the 18th Judicial Circuit judges voted to select Jeffrey S. MacKay as an associate judge of the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit. Mr. MacKay fills the vacancy created by the elevation of Judge Robert G. Kleeman to Circuit Judge.

Mr. MacKay received his undergraduate degree in 1989 from the University of Illinois and his Juris Doctor in 1992 from Chicago Kent. Mr. MacKay is currently affiliated with Ekl, Williams & Provenzale LLC in Lisle, IL.

Foreclosure does not take place in a vacuum; rather, it can span across many boundaries of the law, making it imperative that attorneys from a wide-variety of practice areas stay up to date on this growing region. Get the direction you need to effectively navigate through the residential foreclosure process with this information full-day seminar in Collinsville on April 26^th!

Anyone in Illinois with a question about a legal matter can call and talk to a lawyer – at no cost – on the 32^nd Annual Ask-A-Lawyer Day, Saturday, April 27, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Sponsored by the Illinois State Bar Association ISBA in cooperation with bar associations in Chicago, DuPage County, and Lake County, Ask-A-Lawyer day will have scores of lawyer volunteers responding to phone calls.

Illinois residents can call a toll-free number (or a local number in some areas) to receive a free phone consultation:

• The Chicago Bar Association – 312.554.2001
• DuPage County Bar Association – 630.653.7779
• Lake County Bar Association – 847.244.3143
• From anywhere in Illinois, call the Illinois State Bar Association – 800.252.8908 or 217.525.1760

Lawyer volunteers will be standing by to answer questions about consumer problems, family law, estate planning, personal injury, or any other legal situations affecting individuals. Callers will be advised of steps they can take to resolve their legal problems and, if they need additional legal services, they will be advised to see their lawyer. If they don’t have a lawyer, they can receive a referral to a lawyer who practices in their area through the referral service offered by participating bar associations.

“People often have legal questions and don’t know where to turn,” said John E. Thies, of Urbana, president of the Illinois State Bar Association. “Ask A Lawyer Day provides an easy way for the public to get information about how best to address a legal problem.”

First courthouse in system-wide rolling implementation

Circuit Court of Cook County Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans announced that starting Monday, April 15, the court will begin the enforcement of the full ban on all electronic communications and Internet devices at the George N. Leighton Criminal Court Building at 26th and California.

VR Election Services, ISBA’s election provider, has e-mailed e-ballots to members with valid email addresses and mailed paper ballots to members without email addresses. If you haven’t received your e-ballot, please check your email spam under the suffix vres.us. If your e-ballot is not in your spam folder, or if you received an electronic ballot and want to vote by paper ballot, please contact VRES at (800) 218-4026 or by email at custserv@vres.us. The last day to request a paper ballot is Tuesday, April 16, 2013.