When can - and must - you allow your diminished-capacity client to make a decision you advise against? This article explores this and other ethics issues that arise in serving elderly clients.
The Rules of Professional Conduct make managing nonlawyer staff a high-stakes business. Find out which rules are most directly implicated and learn how to be a better boss.
Litigants often seek protective orders to limit disclosure of clients' sensitive documents during discovery. But be wary of attempts by the requesting party to gain an unfair advantage.
On December 2, 2010, the Appellate Court of Illinois, Third District, upheld a decision of the Circuit Court of Tazewell County, finding no genuine issue of material fact as to whether the distraction or the deliberate-encounter exception to the open and obvious danger rule applied in the present case.
Fees requested by an executor and attorney for administering an estate were not reasonable under the Probate Act, according to an Illinois Appellate Court.
District courts must decide whether prisoners have properly exhausted their administrative remedies before allowing their cases to proceed to the merits.
Though there isn't much money in it, serving as appointed counsel is a way to gain invaluable courtroom experience and remind yourself why you went to law school in the first place.
Courts should allow questioning of prospective jurors on immigration-related bias, the authors say. They also suggest questions that can expose immigrant bias during jury selection.
Illinois lawmakers have amended the Criminal Code of 1961 to raise the fine when imposing absolute liability on a person who committed a misdemeanor offense that is not punishable by incarceration (720 ILCS 5/4-9).
The Alcoholism and Other Drug Abuse and Dependency Act has been amended and expanded to allow not only addicts or alcoholics convicted of a crime but also first-time misdemeanor violators of the Use of Intoxicating Compounds Act to choose to receive treatment under the supervision of a designated licensed program. (20 ILCS 301/40-5; 720 ILCS 690/4).
On December 28, 2010, the Appellate Court of Illinois, Fourth District, reversed a decision of the Circuit Court of Sangamon County, finding that "gifts of income" are subject to the asset transfer policies of the federal Medicaid statute (see 42 USC § 1396p (2006)).
Illinois lawmakers have amended the Good Samaritan Act to exempt from civil liability persons who provide free emergency care at building evacuation scenes. (745 ILCS 49/71 new).
Beginning June 1, Illinois' civil union law confers most of the rights of marriage on parties to a civil union. But federal prohibitions impose important limits. Find out how the new law works.
The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity Law of the Civil Administrative Code of Illinois has been amended to establish guidelines for the administration of the Green Manufacturing Grant Fund. 20 ILCS 605/605-524.
