You may have been asked this by a client, or maybe your Aunt Mabel: "If I see a dog in a hot car, can I break the window to let it out?" Not without breaking the law, writes Melissa Anne Maye in the June Animal Law newsletter. "Although a person might feel that it's worth taking the risk to save the dog, smashing in someone's car window constitutes Criminal Damage to Property," she writes, quoting 720 ILCS 5/21-1(a), which defines it as "knowingly damag[ing] any property of another." "There is no exception for 'good intentions,'" Maye writes. And if the property damage exceeds $300 - likely in the case of a broken car window - the crime is a Class 4 felony.  That doesn't mean the inhumane pet owners won't get theirs, though. Find out why in the August Illinois Bar Journal.

The new overtime regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Labor, which take effect December 1, will impact many law-firm employers to the extent they have traditionally been paying, or not paying, employees with certain job responsibilities for hours worked in excess of 40 per week. In general,  executive, administrative, and professional ("EAP") employees are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act's overtime provisions. According to the DOL's fact sheet, the Department has historically required three tests to be met before the FLSA's EAP exemption applies. See https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/final2016/overtime-factsheet.htm. To qualify for the exemption, employees must (1) be paid a fixed, predetermined salary; (2) the amount paid must meet a specific minimum salary level; and (3) the employee's job duties must primarily involve executive, administrative, or professional duties. The new rule raises the minimum salary from a weekly amount of $455 ($23,660 annually) to $913 per week ($47,476 annually), doing away with the requirement that the rate be an annual salary as opposed to a fixed hourly rate. Teachers, lawyers, and doctors are considered bona fide professionals under the rule; whether they make $913 per week is irrelevant. Law firms need to audit positions within their ranks to determine both whether the weekly amount and the duties tests are met.

Asked and Answered By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC Q. I am the managing partner of a 12-attorney firm in Providence, R.I. In our recent partner meetings we have been discussing ramping up marketing. How much should we be spending on marketing?

Chief Circuit Judge Kathryn E. Creswell is pleased to announce that following a tabulation of ballots by the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts in Springfield, the Circuit Judges of the Eighteenth Judicial Court, DuPage County, Illinois have appointed Bryan S. Chapman to the position of Associate Judge. Mr. Chapman fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Associate Judge Jane Hird Mitton.