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Solo Practice

Solo In Chicago

Empowering the Second City's entrepreneurial legal community.
By Peter Olson

Post Frequency: 2.2/day

Last Entry: March 13, 2009 at 12:21:00

I'm Not in the "Club" so my Case was Defaulted and More...

Posted on October 30, 2008
I finished up a very frustrating case this week that was quite eye-opening as it related to my client getting a fair shake before the court. I was representing an out-of-state Defendant in a courtroom that I don't frequent against a Plaintiff and Plaintiff's counsel that it seemed appeared in the courtroom regularly...

More Court Appointed Business??

Posted on October 27, 2008
I know I'll be watching the implementation of Public Act 95-0846 closely relating to court appointed counsel in juvenile court cases (see a synopsis below from The Juvenile Justice Initiative). And note that the language is "requires" and thus mandatory...

Some Good Old Fashion Creative Lawyering

Posted on October 27, 2008
There's not enough of this quite frankly. Too much of what I observe is akin to an echo chamber of lawyers repeating the same arguments over and over. Or being too lazy to do any legal research to better represent a client. If you're not making a creative sort of off-the-wall argument every few months or so, you may not be representing your clients effectively...

Fathering Resources for your clients

Posted on October 27, 2008
Saw this in the Sunday Trib. regarding Goodwill's YES! Father's Project. Here's an overview from the Website:Goodwill is helping young fathers, aged 18 to 21, take responsibility for themselves, their children, their family and community with the YES! Fathers Project...

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Free ADR CLE @ Daley

Posted on October 27, 2008
Saw this little nugget in October's Bar News:A monthly series of free brown-bag luncheon seminars on Cook County Circuit Court mandatory arbitration and mediation procedures is co-sponsored by the ISBA Alternative Dispute Resolution Section. The programs are conducted by the Law and Chancery Divisions from 12 noon to 1:45 p...

An Order is an Order is an Order

Posted on October 24, 2008
Isn't it? An order entered by a sworn-in judge is an enforceable order, no? I've been dealing with a particular judge in a case recently who seems to take the position that if he/she didn't enter a particular order it shouldn't be given as much weight or on an one occasion it should be ignored because he/she wouldn't have entered it...

How to "Connect"

Posted on October 17, 2008
Well, Clinton '92 taught me it was all about the two-handed handshake and the level of intimacy was dictated by the location of the non-shaking hand...ya know is it just cupping the hand or does it go up on a person's shoulder. And then Dale Carnegie essentially takes the position that the key is being interested in others...

Lawyer = Professional Writer

Posted on October 16, 2008
I just finished up another version of our firm's quarterly client newsletter and it got me dwelling on the absolute necessity of good writing skills by lawyers. I learn a tremendous amount when drafting our newsletter writing an overview article, answering client questions, and then analyzing several cases within our practice areas...

Benefit from the Foreclosure Mess

Posted on October 16, 2008
I had lunch with a lawyer friend/mentor recently who mentioned some court appointed work he'd gotten involved with recently and I'd guess there's plenty of work in this area now. The role is that of "Special Administrator" in foreclosure cases where a defendant is deceased...

You Must Be an Expert on This Issue!

Posted on October 13, 2008
If you're any degree of a "trial" lawyer or practice in any area where you're in court a lot, you must be an expert on service of process/personal jurisdiction/subject matter jurisdiction issues.These matters impact every case that you file or defend and can potentially undermine all your great lawyering if not done right, up front...

Lock Up the Lawyers!

Posted on October 10, 2008
I strolled off the elevator on the 30th Floor at Daley this morning around 945am and there were some television cameras interviewing what appeared to be a young, female attorney. I asked around a bit and was told a Jewish, female attorney skipped a court appearance yesterday and therefore a Judge held her in contempt and apparently she was detained this morning...

Chicago Lawyer Jailed: The Conclusion

Posted on October 07, 2008
Just a follow-up to a previous post about Chicago lawyer Allison Smith's being jailed for direct criminal contempt of court at Daley. The First District Appellate Court overturned her conviction. Thanks to a commenter for forwarding the decision.The underlying message seemed to be that the trial court was wrong on a substantive ruling regarding the lawyer's Motion to Strike a trial date...

Hot Off the Presses

Posted on October 06, 2008
Just heard this from a reliable source:I'm happy to report that the City Council Finance Committee today unanimously passed Ald. Burke's proposed Ordinance to bar transfer taxes on the transfer of interest in marital home real estate pursuant to Judgment for Divorce or Separation,, including an amendment which I suggested making the proposal retroactive (to 1992!)...

Tribune Commentary on Judicial Elections

Posted on October 06, 2008
Saw this interesting commentary in Sunday's Trib. by Roy Hofer, former CBA President, entitled 'A judge-to-be beat our flawed selection system.' It outlines the case of Attorney Kristyna Colleen Ryan who apparently won a Chicago Democratic primary and is unopposed in the general so thus will be sitting on a bench in Cook County soon...

Client Trust Accounts and Bank Failures

Posted on October 02, 2008
MN Lawyers Mutual had an interesting piece in its last newsletter cover the issue above. The article's fairly extensive. The general rule is that you shouldn't hold more than $100,000 of a client's money in a single bank since that's the max coverage on FDIC insurance...

Lawyer Divorce Solicitations

Posted on October 02, 2008
There was an interesting thread recently on one of the list serves I frequent. It seems several lawyers on the list had recently been retained by clients to defend dissolution of marriage (divorce) actions and upon meeting with the new clients heard that the clients had gotten several lawyer solicitations/advertisements upon the dissolution case being filed...

IL Constitutional Convention

Posted on October 02, 2008
Is everyone following this litigation regarding the ballot wording related to whether or not we should call a constitutional convention here in Illinois? Eric Zorn has been all over it in the Trib. and they editorialized about it yesterday too. Two cheers to the Chicago Bar Association for bringing suit regarding the ballot wording...

Your Family Law Practice...Not Always High-Minded Jurisprudence

Posted on September 30, 2008
Lawyer: Pro golfer's wife denies stealing phoneSep 29, 2:06 pm EDTJACKSON, Miss. (AP)?An attorney for John Daly?s estranged wife, Sherrie Daly, says she did not steal the pro golfer?s cell phone. Randy Fishman said Monday that ?this is a divorce case and people accuse each other of stuff all the time...

Judges and Time Management??

Posted on September 29, 2008
Why in 90% of courtrooms do judges just set like 80% of cases at 9/930/10am? If you practice where I practice, every status hearing in most courtrooms gets set at the same time so you have 30 cases scheduled for say 930am. So inevitably those courtrooms get backed up and time gets wasted...

Some "Petition for Rule to Show Cause" Nuggets

Posted on September 29, 2008
If you practice in the domestic relations field you need to be an expert on petitioning to hold a party in contempt of court and defending your client against being held in contempt of court. This is the most common pleading you'll deal with in the family law field...

4 Tech Tips

Posted on September 20, 2008
From Friday's CBA Technology and Practice Management Committee:1) Buy an orange briefcase for your computer. This lessens the possibility of anyone stealing it at airports, etc. Red is good too; 2) Put message on your PDA offering reward if returned, has worked for me three times, once with cabbie; 3) Use Acrobat for marking up case law and other docs -- can do in color and type comments; 4) Buy and use Time Map, particularly for litigators.

An Overview of Loan Forgiveness Programs for Public Sector Lawyers

Posted on September 20, 2008
I suppose the devil will be in the details and it's too late for me, but here's our federal government's handout to lawyers who choose to work as federal or state prosecutors, public defenders, and something called "public interest legal services." So go to a state school, work in one of these sectors for a few years and your law school loans are gone.

So you wanna be a Judge?

Posted on September 20, 2008
Well, it ain't all black robes and high-minded jurisprudence. Sometimes you get human excrement thrown at you.

Lap Dances and Legal Fees

Posted on September 19, 2008
Here's the story from today's Trib. about a DeKalb lawyers who had his law license suspended for acts relating to his representation of a stripper and bartering her legal fees downward in exchange for stripteases.Let me say for starters, I don't like to make light of the failures of other attorneys because I'm not here to suggest I'm without failing and I hate it when I see lawyers "outing" other lawyers in various list serve forums...

Sheriff OKs deal to ban Political Hiring

Posted on September 12, 2008
Alright, I'm waiting with baited breath for the Sheriff to now function smoothly and efficiently. Here's the Sun-Times article and a blurb:Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart on Thursday agreed to settle a federal lawsuit that seeks to eliminate political hiring in his office...

9/16...More Free CLE

Posted on September 12, 2008
Some free domestic relations-related CLE @ CBA from the Woman's Bar Association of IL (I think men are invited too):THE WOMEN?S BAR ASSOCIATION OF ILLINOIS presents A Domestic Relations Round table Discussion: ?Non-traditional Wage Earners? led by The Honorable Raul Vega

There is Light at the end of the Tunnel

Posted on September 11, 2008
I was struck by two articles I saw recently where attorneys have successfully melded their legal careers around their passions. I struggle with this all the time asking myself what do I possibly care about divorces and real estate transactions? In other words, but for my current profession and my law firm background, I wouldn't care too much about these fields, i...

It's Just a Status Hearing, Judge

Posted on September 11, 2008
I used that line a couple weeks ago and the judge who wanted to get the particular case moving nearly bit my head off because I used the line in the context of explaining why our client wasn't in court for a status hearing. Of course in this case I was correct, at least in my point maybe not my smugness...

Threatening Attorneys with Disciplinary Action

Posted on September 11, 2008
Chicago Lawyer had an interesting piece on this subject in the September issue (unfortunately it's not online). This issue is Rule 1.2(e) of the Illinois rules of professional conduct. Here's the text of the Rule:(e) A lawyer shall not present, participate in presenting, or threaten to present criminal charges or professional disciplinary actions to obtain an advantage in a civil matter...

The Risks of Taking Cases at Inconvenient Courthouses

Posted on September 02, 2008
I've always practiced in "volume" law firms. I don't say that as a criticism I simply mention it to explain that I've never worked in a big dollar trial practice where I think you essentially take the big money cases just about wherever you can find them because the potential payoff is worth the inconvenience...

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