Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from Carole Levitt and Mark Rosch – two internationally recognized Internet trainers and authors of seven American Bar Association Law Practice Division books – as they show you how to develop online investigative strategies to search like a private investigator. The program, which takes place in Chicago on December 12, 2014, show you how to develop effective investigative search strategies via the Internet using a variety of free and low-cost sources to help with your next case or transaction. Attendees with all levels of practice experience will learn how to: access expensive databases (for free!); retrieve background information from public records; conduct due diligence; unearth bankruptcies and other litigation history; find hard-to-locate people; learn how you can (and can’t) use social networking sites for investigative and background research; and how to overcome social media discovery and evidentiary issues and authenticate profiles. This Master Series seminar qualifies for 3.0 hours MCLE credit, including 3.0 hours Professional Responsibility MCLE credit (subject to approval).Click here for more information and to register.

Chicago solo practitioner Leila Kanani needed to find experienced attorneys to help her handle overflow work when her docket spiked, but she couldn't hire anyone full-time because she couldn't count on staying crazy-busy. So she reached out to attorneys she knew who had left BigLaw to become stay-at-home mothers but wanted to keep one foot in the legal business."Whenever I got busy, I didn't know who to turn to for work," says Kanani, who estimates her practice is 60 to 65 percent litigation and the rest transactional, including estate planning, intellectual property, and corporate, family, and environmental law. "They were just sitting at home. They loved it. I set them up with other projects, and it just grew out of that."In 2013, she founded Intermix Legal Group, a network of freelance attorneys and those who want to hire them for piece work - projects like drafting pleadings and motions, helping with discovery and depositions, and handling trial preparation - without setting up their own full-time practices. Find out more about hiring freelancers - and being one - in the December Illinois Bar Journal.

The Illinois State Bar Association's Task Force on the Impact of Law School Curriculum and Debt on the Future of the Profession will hold seven open hearings throughout the state. The Task Force was established by President Richard D. Felice and is chaired by Honorable Ann Jorgensen, Justice of the Second District Appellate Court. ISBA members are encouraged to attend these hearings to discuss the core skill sets that new lawyers should have and how law schools can graduate more “practice ready” lawyers.The final hearing will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. on Wednesday, December 10 at the ISBA Chicago Regional Office, 20 S. Clark, Ste. 900.

Our panel of leading appellate attorneys review Thursday's Illinois Supreme Court opinions in the civil cases Keating v. City of Chicago, Madigan v. Illinois Commerce Commission, Pusateri v. Peoples Gas Light and Coke Company and Huber v. American Accounting Association and the criminal cases People v. Denson, People v. Holt, In re Detention of New and Cordrey v. Illinois Prison Review Board. The court also released In re Edmonds. CIVILKeating v. City of ChicagoBy Alyssa M. Reiter, Williams, Montgomery & John Ltd.This opinion, while not reaching the merits of the case, reflects an important point of Illinois constitutional law.The appellants sought review from a Supreme Court Rule 23 Order which affirmed dismissal of the plaintiffs’ complaint challenging the City of Chicago’s red light camera ordinance.  On review, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal:In this case, two Justices of this Court have recused themselves and the remaining members of the Court are divided so that it is not possible to secure the constitutionally required concurrence of four judges for a decision (see Ill. Const. 1970, art. VI, § 3).  Accordingly, the appeal is dismissed.The Court explained that the effect of this dismissal is the same as an affirmance by an equally divided court of the decision under review but it does not have precedential value.