Illinois Law Schools & Attorneys

The Illinois Supreme Court Rules govern who may be permitted to practice law in Illinois and before every court therein. All applicants, whether seeking admission to the bar on examination, or by motion, must meet the educational requirements specified in Rule 703. Among other requirements, Rule 703 provides, "...each applicant shall have pursued a course of law studies and fulfilled the requirements for and received a first degree in law from a law school approved by the American Bar Association."

In dissent to Rule 703, Justice Heiple famously wrote the following:

I both dissent and object to these rules because they represent an improper delegation of a governmental and judicial function to a trade association of lawyers.

The American Bar Association is a voluntary association of dues paying lawyers (currently $225 per annum) that exists for the benefit of its members. No lawyer is required to belong. Most do not. It clothes its parochial existence with an overlay of public activities and pronouncements designed to convince the general public that it is interested in the general welfare. That its primary focus is the benefit of its members, however, is beyond question. That the American Bar Association is a trade association warrants neither commendation nor condemnation. As a trade association engaging in improving the status of lawyers and lobbying Congress and the State legislatures, it is on a par with any other trade association. It is decidedly not, however, an arm of the State of Illinois nor of this court.

It is improper for this court to assign and delegate to that organization the ultimate decisionmaking function of deciding for the State of Illinois which law schools warrant official recognition. It would be proper, of course, for this court and its Board of Law Examiners (now, Board of Admissions to the Bar) to consider and weigh the evaluations of the American Bar Association in considering which law schools are to be approved. The work of the American Bar Association in evaluating law schools could be considered as relevant evidence in that regard. No objection could be raised to that procedure.

This court, however, has no right to delegate its decisionmaking function to the American Bar Association, the Teamsters Union, the Republic of Uganda or any other such body or group. If the rule asserts a valid principle of law, then this court could as well assign all of its decisionmaking functions to others who might be considered experts in their field.

It is the Illinois Board of Admissions to the Bar--a public body, rather than the American Bar Association--that approves the colleges and universities at which applicants are required to complete at least 90 semester hours of acceptable college work before pursuing a course of law studies. The Board also reviews for acceptability the quality of preliminary, college, and legal education of applicants who received their legal education and law degree in foreign countries.

There are currently a mere 9 law schools approved by the American Bar Association in the State of Illinois; and if you aren't able to personally attend classes in Chicago, Champaign, DeKalb, or Carbondale, you may be out of luck, because, as a matter of policy, the American Bar Association does not approve distance education programs in law.

This policy is at odds with those who believe that distance education programs in law can offer the same level of quality and education as can traditional programs. The University of London, in England--the country upon who's tradition our legal system is based--as well as many others, offer a similar degree in law, without discrimination between traditional and distance education students; and these degrees are considered perfectly normal and acceptable for the purpose of practicing law in the United Kingdom and other common law counties.

In California, a public body known as the Committee of Bar Examiners, has approved a number of law schools not approved by the American Bar Association, including distance education programs (Some of these are computer based, and some are otherwise.) While a graduate of one of these programs may be permitted to practice law in California, according to Rule 703, they won't be permitted to do so in Illinois. In addition, if you're thinking about enrolling in the University of London's distance education program in law, or any other program in a foreign country, know that the Illinois Supreme Court Rules require you to also have been practicing law actively and continuously for at least five of the last seven years before admission here.

Consider the ongoing promotion of the Illinois Virtual Campus service and the fact that Abraham Lincoln never attended a law school approved by the American Bar Association.

Here are some questions for readers to answer in their comments:

1. Does the Illinois Supreme Court's delegation, and the American Bar Association's refusal to approve distance education programs in law, (a) limit the number of law schools in Illinois, (b) limit the number of licensed attorneys in Illinois, (c) drive up the cost of either due to limited supply in the face of constant demand, or (d) none of the above? Does the current arrangement make Illinois less competitive in the area of legal education?

2. Do you believe that the current arrangement best serves the interests of (a) current attorneys, (b) the public at large, (c) both, or (d) neither?

3. Do you believe that distance education programs in law can offer the same quality and education as traditional in-classroom programs? How does this affect your opinion on the Illinois Virtual Campus service currently being offered by the University of Illinois?

4. Should (a) the Illinois Supreme Court amend Rule 703 to read "law school approved by the Board of Admissions to the Bar" rather than "law school approved by the American Bar Association", (b) the American Bar Association start approving distance education programs in law, (c) something else, or (d) none of the above?

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Times of London: Conrad Black could get just a five year sentence

Former newspaper baron Conrad Black, former CEO of the Hollinger Group which once published the London Telegraph, the Jerusalem Post, and Canada's National Post, could receive a surprisingly light prison term of five years when he is sentenced in Chicago next month, according to an exclusive report by the Times of London.

The rump of Hollinger is now called the Sun-Times Media Group, which publishes the Chicago Sun-Times, the Daily Southtown and a whole bunch of suburban newspapers, including the Morton Grove Champion.

Lord Black was found guilty of fraud and corruption charges in a federal court earlier this year, the office of US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald prosecuted the case. The prosecution is asking for a sentence of 24-30 years, a possible death sentence for a 63 year-old man.

The Hollinger case was a major story in Great Britain and Black's native Canada, but not so here. Authors Dominick Dunne and Mark Steyn were regulars in the visitors section of the courtroom during the trial.

Former Illinois Governor Jim Thompson is a former Hollinger board member.

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Homeland Security sues Illinois over E-Verify

E-Verify is a federal program that allows companies to check the employment eligibility at no charge to them to check the employment eligibility of job applicants.

In short, it's a check to see if a potential employee is in the country legally.

From WorldNet Daily:

Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff recently told a congressional committee he didn't intend to "tolerate interference" by sanctuary cities that would block companies from participating in such programs as "E-Verify," which allows workers' IDs to be checked before hiring.

Chertoff also told Congress that, "I intend to take as vigorous legal actions as the law allows to prevent that from happening, prevent that kind of interference."

And guess who Chertoff has his eyes on? Illinois.

More from WorldNet:

Within days, the first fruits of that promised were revealed, with a lawsuit against the state of Illinois over a legislative proposal signed into law by Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

According to published reports Illinois is "complicating" efforts by federal agents with a state law that virtually blocks corporations from participating in the program that was set up to verify if new employees have legal standing to work in the United States.

"The state of Illinois has now made it illegal to comply with federal law," Chertoff told reporters when the action was filed. "That's not acceptable as a matter of the Constitution."

Hat tip to Third Wave Dave and Andrea Shea King for the story.

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Family of dead Chicago Marathon runner may sue

Participants in any organized running event must sign a waiver absolving the race of any responsibility in case a serious injury or death occurs. But the family of Chad Schieber, the Michigan man who died while running in last month's Chicago Marathon has hired a lawyer who is looking into the tragic events of October 7.

From the Chicago "free registration required" Tribune:

The attorney, Gilbert Ross of Chicago, said Friday he believes the Village of Niles ambulance that picked up Chad Schieber, 35, of Michigan got lost on its way to the hospital.

But Ross said it's unclear how much time was lost and whether a faster response would have made a difference.

In court on Friday, Cook County Circuit Judge Ronald Davis entered an order that requires Chicago and Niles officials to preserve 911 tapes and other evidence in the case. Lawyers for all sides had agreed to the order.

Because of the heavy demand for ambulances that day, suburban crews were called into to the city to assist. My dominant post-race memory while resting in Grant Park if of sirens blasting constantly.

Related Marathon Pundit posts:

A participant's view of the cancelled Chicago Marathon: UPDATED

More questions surrounding Chicago Marathon runner's death

Chicago Marathon: Ambulance driver got lost, took dead runner to wrong hospital

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Exclusive: Van der Hooning, and Illinois vets, get a hearing at the Court of Claims

Cases involving employees of the state of Illinois often end up in the Court of Claims, and in Chicago that means heading to the massive Helmut Jahn-designed James R. Thomspon Center in the city's Loop.

The building, pictured above, has many distinguishing characteristics, but its most prominent one is its enormous atrium in the center of the roundish building. Many of the offices in the building don't have doors--the inspiration behind that was Jahn's belief that government should be open and accessible to the people it serves.

My alma mater, the University of Illinois, has been less than open in its handling of the scandal involving rescinded military scholarships for its Chicago Executive MBA program.

The state, on the other hand, was great today. They let me into the hearing, which fits Jahn's inspiration.

Here are my key posts on that topic:

Broken promises: How "jarheads" got shunted aside at the University of Illinois: A Marathon Pundit series

Marathon Pundit Exclusive: What happened behind the scenes of the University of Illinois veteran scholarship scandal

University of Illinois: "Hookers are Praised as Soldiers" –Marathon Pundit's Third Investigative Report

University of Illinois military scholarships scandal update

I'm going to do a second post as soon as some of that I observed is digested, particularly the legal terms

Each side got twenty minutes to present their case. Lindsay Jones, with a booming southern accent stated the U of I's case with well-timed cadence, which in one sentance was: This case should be dismissed.

Then Robert van der Hooning's side got its turn. Van der Hooning has two lawyers fighting for him--and the veterans. Legendary Chicago attorney Michael Shakman, the inspiration behind the anti-political patronage legal decision known as the Shakman Decree, and Jennifer Smiley are in van der Hooning's corner.

Smiley's presentation was measured and deliberate, which to me--keeping in mind that I'm not a lawyer--was the best way to convince the six judges the merits of van der Hooning's case.

Forty-five minutes after it began, the hearing was over. Van der Hooning thanked me repeatedly for showing up. Shakman and Smiley didn't seem to know what to make of "this blogger person," but I'm used to that. Neither did Tom Klocek's attorneys John Mauck and Andy Norman when they met me for the first time when their battle with DePaul began in 2005. They're big fans of the blog now.

I asked Shakman when he thought a decision would be reached. "Weeks," he replied. "Or months," Smiley added.

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Don Gordon v. Joe Moore vote fraud suit proceeds, moves to discovery phase

In a ruling given late this morning, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Marsha D. Hayes refused the request by Alderman Joe Moore's attorneys to dismiss the Don Gordon's lawsuit against the 49th Ward incumbent in which Gordon alleges vote fraud took place on a level significant level that warrants overturning the results of April's run-off election.

The borders of the 49th Ward roughly match that of Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood.

Regular Marathon Pundit readers know that Moore has sought to make a national name for himself by trumpeting such causes as the Iraq War, Wal-Mart expansion and the banning of the goose liver delicacy foie gras in Chicago. On that last one, according to an e-mail sent to me by Jake of the Freedom Folks--he's a chef--about a dozen restaurants among the thousands of eateries in the nation's third largest city served foie gras.

Meanwhile, as Tom Mannis reports on Rogers Park Bench, Moore is not a good steward of his ward--basic needs of his constituents go unfulfilled. The Broken Heart of Rogers Park has corroborating evidence.

The case goes on to the discovery phase.

Moore is a former City of Chicago attorney, and can't too feel comfortable being on the other side of the legal microscope. When you're used to being in power, it's painful being in a situation where you can be powerless.

A Chicago election has never been overturned by the courts. But stranger things have happened. After all, two years ago, a Chicago baseball team, the White Sox, won the World Series.

Voter49 has a lot more.

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Breaking: Lawsuit alleges vote fraud in last week's 49th Ward election

A huge, huge hat tip to Tom Mannis of Rogers Park Bench, one of those bloggers who are on their way to making Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhodd the capital of blogger-dom.

From a press release posted at RPB:

49th Ward Vote Fraud Release - April 24, 2007

For Immediate Release

Contact: Michael Harrington 773-262-9473

Mike Pilarz 312-943-9100

ROGERS PARK RESIDENTS CHARGE FLAGRANT
VOTE FRAUD IN 49TH WARD ALDERMANIC ELECTION

Voting Rights Hijacked In Aldermanic Election: Votes Cast for the Elderly,
Voters Registered At Abandoned Buildings, And Repeat Voters

CHICAGO, April 24, 2007 – “Vote fraud has taken away the voice of our community and it hurts us all,” a group of 49th Ward residents said today as they announced a lawsuit to contest the results of last week’s aldermanic election.

“As citizens we have a right to fair and clean elections. The violations that happened last week profoundly impact every one of us. We are outraged by the dirty tricks and illegal campaign tactics that occurred in many polling places in our ward,” said community activist Eva McCann. McCann is a plaintiff in the lawsuit along with community residents Blane Roberts, Eileen Foxman, and 49th Ward Aldermanic Candidate Don Gordon.

A lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court by the group on Monday cited numerous examples of vote fraud in the Tuesday, April 17, runoff election. They include elderly nursing home residents who were illegally assisted in voting, voters whose home addresses turned out to be vacant buildings, and voters who were issued two ballots instead of one. The group announced their lawsuit at 7724 N. Ashland Ave., an abandoned apartment building where a person identified as Delores Young claimed to be registered and was allowed to cast a ballot on April 17.

“We have confirmed multiple cases of votes cast by people whose addresses turned out to be vacant buildings and by people from outside the ward. We have an obligation to uphold the voting rights of the citizens of Chicago whose honest ballots were potentially negated by fraud,” said McCann. She noted that voters’ rights to a fair election were also “hijacked” when polling place election judges in numerous precincts denied requests to verify questionable voters and “systematically ignored” election laws.

Gordon, a 30-year community resident, said, “The mood in our ward has changed from concern over the outcome of the election to a more fundamental concern about getting a fair election in the first place. As a candidate, I didn’t sign up to lead a battle against violations of basic voting rights. But as a voter I will stand up for this.” He added: “Although an investigation will determine more facts about this election, we already know there is no doubt that its integrity is in question. I want to make sure that every voice is heard.”

According to the Chicago Board of Elections, Moore received 4,019 votes to Gordon’s 3,772, a 247-vote difference.

Co-plaintiff Roberts stated: “We have heard outrageous claims that our call to investigate vote fraud is racially motivated. That is simply not the case. Instead, the election has made us more aware than ever before of how race and class have been used to divide our community and keep us from focusing on real community issues.”

The plaintiffs called on Alderman Moore, government officials, and Chicago’s civil rights leaders to support the lawsuit and join in the call for an investigation.

“We expect people in public office to take a stand and help guarantee fair and clean elections. This is of far greater importance than a simple aldermanic election, and we call on everyone involved to join us in the investigation so that we can preserve basic voting rights for the future of all of Chicago,” Roberts said.

“We would not be here were this a simple matter of election error,” said McCann. “We have considerable evidence that points to a pattern of conspiracy, and more evidence will be presented as we move forward with this investigation.”

The residents, represented by Attorney Michael Lavelle, a former chairman of the Chicago Board of Elections Commissioners, are contesting the 49th Ward election results and seek an investigation into allegations of vote fraud violations and conspiracy to commit vote fraud.

SUMMARY OF 49th WARD ELECTION LAWSUIT CHARGES

1. Elderly nursing home residents who were “assisted” in voting without formally agreeing to be assisted as required by law (in Lake Shore and Sherwin Manor nursing homes)
2. Polling place judges who refused to obey Chicago Board of Elections guidelines requiring that questionable voters be given provisional ballots (in Precincts #11, 34, and more)
3. Votes cast by people registered to vote at vacant buildings and vacant lots
4. Polling place electioneering (at Arbour Health Care Center, 1512 W. Fargo Ave.)
5. Precincts where more votes were cast than there were voter applications (in Precinct #11 and others)
6. Precincts where voters were given two paper ballots instead of one (in Precinct #5)
7. Voters who cast ballots during the Early Voting period and again on the April 17 Election Day.

For additional information contact Citizens to Elect Don Gordon at 773-262-9473.

# # #

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WorldNet Daily gets it wrong on my hometown

WorldNet Daily likes to jump in on stories quickly--sometimes too quickly. In response to the renewed debate on gun-control, WorldNet tried the tired high-school formula of "compare and contrast."

In 1981, years before I moved here, Morton Grove, Illinois enacted a handgun ban, the first in the nation. In response, the Cobb County, Georgia town of Kennesaw made it law that each household own a gun. Crime would go up in the "Wild West" atmosphere of the new Kennesaw, and go down in Morton Grove according to the "experts" at the time.

From WorldNet Daily:

The crime rate (in Kennesaw) initially plummeted for several years after the passage of the ordinance, with the 2005 per capita crime rate actually significantly lower than it was in 1981, the year before passage of the law.

Prior to enactment of the law, Kennesaw had a population of just 5,242 but a crime rate significantly higher (4,332 per 100,000) than the national average (3,899 per 100,000). The latest statistics available – for the year 2005 – show the rate at 2,027 per 100,000. Meanwhile, the population has skyrocketed to 28,189.

By comparison, the population of Morton Grove, the first city in Illinois to adopt a gun ban for anyone other than police officers, has actually dropped slightly and stands at 22,202, according to 2005 statistics. More significantly, perhaps, the city's crime rate increased by 15.7 percent immediately after the gun ban, even though the overall crime rate in Cook County rose only 3 percent. Today, by comparison, the township's crime rate stands at 2,268 per 100,000.

Kennesaw's population has soared for one simple reason--the town was overrun by the sprawl of Atlanta. The same thing happened to Morton Grove right after World War II, but as empty-nesters became prevalent in the 1980s among post-war suburban boom-towns, the population went down, as it did in hundreds of similar towns during that time.

I don't have the statistics in front of me, but crime in Morton Grove went up in the 1980s and 1990s largely because a seedy strip of motels on Waukegan Avenue became the residence of choice of drug dealers, prostitutes, and other no-goodnicks. The Village of Morton Grove, exercising its eminent domain powers, tore down the motels in 1999 so a renaissance of Waukegan Road could bloom. Crime went down a lot across Morton Grove (Gee, I wonder who committed all those offenses?) but the Waukegan Road commercial renewal is something we're still waiting for here.

But the new street lights are real pretty.

Since I moved here in 1999, I know of two murders in Morton Grove. The first one involved an Oklahoma drifter who somehow ended up dead in a forest preserve outhouse near the local running path. The other killing involved a businessman whose body was found around 2003, wrapped in concrete and placed on the roof of one of my favorite restaurants. Roofers working on a neighboring business noted something odd, and found the entombed victim, who was likely killed because of numerous bad business dealings. He was last seen alive in the mid 1990s.

I can't remember if the victims were shot to death, but even if there wasn't a handgun ban here, it probably wouldn't have made a difference for the two men.

The handgun ban is a stupid law, but to say crime is higher Morton Grove because of it is disingenuous. As with most middle class suburbs, Morton Grove crime largely consists of shoplifting, small-scale burglaries, domestic disputes, vandalism and incidents of drug possession. A local politician told me a couple of years ago that the only arrests he knows of involving violations of the handgun ban involve oblivious drivers being pulled over on a traffic offense--with the police discovering a gun inside the vehicle. Needless to say, although I'm not one of them, there are handgun owners living in Morton Grove

Do a little more research next time, WorldNet.

Oh, in late 2005, while running not too far from the spot where the drifter's body was found, a Cook County Forest Preserve policeman, on a bitterly cold day, confronted me about allegedly--and I want to reiterate, allegedly, urinating fairly deep inside a grove of trees. No one else was there, which says a lot about the law enforcement force derisively known at "the tree police."

I told him I was stretching, and he drove away.

That Morton Grove "crime" went unreported.

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