Who Wants to Be a Lawyer?

The Chicago Bar Association is honored this week to participate in tours of the Daley Center Courthouse in celebration of Black History Month. This week, Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans of the Circuit Court of Cook County is hosting visits by groups of students from Chicago middle and high schools. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak to three groups of students.

I engaged the students in a discussion about the skills that lawyers need to bring home to them that they can become lawyers. “Who likes to argue?” I asked the students. “Who likes to dress up and perform?” “Who likes to write?” These are the kinds of things that lawyers need to like to do, I explained. The students showed a good knowledge about our court system – explaining to me who both Justice Sonya Sotomayor and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor are, and why they are important. I shared with the group the url for Justice O’Connor’s civic education website, www.icivics.org, which includes several good computer games designed to teach students about the Constitution, the court system and government.

The session yesterday was hosted by Judge Evans, and the other speakers included Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Judge Leonard Murray, Chair of the Illinois Judicial Council, Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater Chicago President, Tonya Wilkes Moore, and Cook County Bar Association President Lawrence Hill. Later this week, CBA officers Aurora Abella-Austriaco and Dan Cotter, and YLS leaders Jill Eckert McCall and Justin Heather will take turns speaking to the students. The CBA is delighted to be involved in this important civic education program.

The Keys to the Ritz

One of my favorite quotations about access to justice, often attributed to a Justice Sturgess, goes like this:

“Justice is open to everyone in the same way as the Ritz Hotel.”

A group of Chicago lawyers, working through the Chicago Bar Association and the Chicago Bar Foundation, are getting ready to pass out lots of keys to the Ritz Hotel in the courtrooms of the First Municipal District of the Circuit Court of Cook County. The CBA and the CBF, in partnership with the Circuit Court, the Judges of the First Municipal District, and CBF grantees CARPLS and the Chicago Legal Clinic, have formed a new Municipal Court Pro Bono Panel Program to provide pro bono counsel to indigent litigants who face mandatory arbitrations or jury trials in the First Municipal District. Today I was privileged to address a group of about 70 lawyers who have volunteered to be the charter members of that Panel.

Four law firms have answered the call to provide lawyers for the Municipal Court Pro Bono Panel pilot program: Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP, Segal, McCambridge, Singer & Mahoney, Winston & Strawn LLP, and my own firm, Jenner & Block LLP. Our thanks to those four firms for supporting this program, to the willing associates from those firms who have volunteered to represent Municipal Court litigants, and to the partners from those firms who have agreed to provide supervision and guidance to their associates.

Our thanks also to CARPLS for supporting our training and agreeing to screen cases for pro bono placement, to the Chicago Legal Clinic for supporting our training and providing volunteer support, to Megan McClung and Scott Henry, both former CBA YLS Chairs, for putting in lots of legwork to get the program organized, and, especially, to former YLS Chair Judge Thomas Donnelly for bringing the need for pro bono representation in Municipal Court to the CBA/CBF’s attention and for conceiving the idea for the Pro Bono Panel.

Thanks to this wonderful group of lawyers, access to justice is about to become a reality for many, many litigants in the First Municipal District.

A Conversation with Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Judge Ann C. Williams (left) interviews Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

It was our great pleasure on Monday, January 21, 2011, to host A Conversation with United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Sotomayor impressed us all with her warmth, insights and dedication to service of her country.

Justice Sotomayor and I

Judge Ann Claire Williams of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals conducted a “Barbara Walters” style interview of Justice Sotomayor before a sold-out crowd of over 700 in the Ballroom of the Standard Club. The Justice spoke openly of her compelling life story – a journey from the projects in the Bronx (she is a big Yankees fan) to the highest court of our land. She told a story of the father of a high school classmate who in her presence callously commented, seeing a Puerto Rican Day Parade on TV: “Those people are ruining our country.” The Justice spoke of how she spent a summer in college reading several English-language classic children’s books because she felt she was missing references to their stories in her literature classes at Princeton because they were not the stories she knew as a child. And she laughed as she related how frustrated she was, as a new freshman at Princeton, when she could not locate and dispose of a cricket that was disturbing her sleep at night – you see, she told us, there were no crickets in the Bronx.

Justice Sotomayor spoke equally compellingly about advice that she received from her predecessor, Justice Souter, and from Justice John Paul Stevens. Justice Souter counseled Justice Sotomayor that he enjoyed his job immensely once he realized that all of his colleagues on the Supreme Court were motivated by the same love of our Constitution that he feels, and that they while they sometimes disagree with each other, each of the Justices is acting in good faith in furtherance of the same goal. Justice Stevens, she told us, advised her that serving as a Supreme Court Justice is a constant growing process, that she has all the tools she will need to succeed, and that she should allow herself to grow.

Justice Sotomayor with Judge Williams (left)
and Judge Ilana D. Rovner, 7th Circuit U.S. Court
of Appeals.

The Justice told us that she still feels she is having an out-of-body experience when she thinks about the fact that she serves on the Supreme Court. Asked whether she ever has to pinch herself, Justice Sotomayor responded, “I don’t pinch myself because I don’t want to wake up.” Justice Sotomayor said that she considered saying no when President Obama asked her to serve on the Supreme Court, out of concern whether she would be able to continue to spend time with her aging mother. When she related her intention to her mother, the Justice said, her mother responded , “I have sacrificed my whole life for you and your brother so that you could get to this point . Don’t deprive me of this.”

It is clear that Justice Sotomayor feels a strong call to serve our country. She spoke of the importance of giving back to our community, and to answer the call when our country calls. She talked of how, throughout her career, she has been involved in pro bono work, and how even now she frequently meets with groups of citizens to educate them about the Court.

Joining me at a reception before the event are (left to right) Justice Mary Jane
Theis, Illinois Supreme Court; Justice Sotomayor, Chief Justice Thomas
Kilbride, Illinois Supreme Court; and Justice Anne Burke, Illinois Supreme Court.

It was an inspiring afternoon. Our great thanks to Justice Sotomayor for being willing to share the afternoon with us, and to our good friend, Judge Williams, for inviting Justice Sotomayor to come to Chicago to speak to us.

Judicial Arrogance? No. Judicial Independence? Yes.

This week, the Chicago press has engaged in extensive coverage of the legal proceedings involving the challenge to Mayoral Candidate Rahm Emanuel’s residency. The proceedings, understandably, hold great public interest. But the press has gone beyond the bounds of responsible journalism in impugning the integrity of several distinguished jurists who have been or will be involved in the legal proceedings before this case is over. Members of the legal community should speak out against the unfair, and unfounded, accusations that the Tribune has leveled against these judges.

The Chicago Tribune, in one supposed “news article” and two editorials (one entitled, “Judicial Arrogance”), has suggested that Illinois Appellate Justices Thomas E. Hoffman and Shelvin Louise Marie Hall were motivated by politics in issuing the majority appellate decision in the case. The Tribune suggests that both were “anointed by a Chicago political power broker who openly supports an Emanuel opponent.” The Tribune’s statements are baseless and unfair. Both Justice Hoffman and Justice Hall, who collectively have served the people of the State of Illinois as judges for 47 years, were, it is true, slated to run for office by the Democratic Party of Cook County. But so was Justice Bertina E. Lampkin, who penned the dissent in the case, and the Tribune does not question Justice Lampkin’s motives. All three are well-respected judges who have consistently been found qualified by this Bar Association and others.

What all three Justices did in this case was exactly what judges do in every case – they read the briefs, heard the arguments, studied the law, and reached what they believed were the correct decisions interpreting the law and applying it to the facts of the case. We express no opinion on the merits of the Appellate Court’s decision, but it is common in litigation that reasonable lawyers and judges, acting in good faith, reach different decisions. What is important to the rule of law is that we jealously guard judicial independence. If judges are not free to decide cases based upon their best judgment and are instead put under political pressure to reach one conclusion, then our legal system is deserving of no respect. The Tribune is irresponsible in suggesting that any of the three justices who participated in hearing this case was motivated by anything other than his or her honest interpretation of the law.

Even more irresponsible, both the Chicago Sun Times and the Tribune have attacked Justice Anne Burke of the Illinois Supreme Court, suggesting that she should recuse herself from participating in the Illinois Supreme Court’s review of the case because her husband is a “key Chico backer.” The editors of the these two distinguished papers should be ashamed of themselves for impugning Justice Burke’s independence and integrity. There is absolutely no basis on which to suggest that Justice Burke, whose reputation is beyond reproach, would decide any case based upon anything other than her best judgment of what the law requires. And, as a woman, I find particularly offensive the suggestion that Justice Burke would squander her reputation and her sacred oath in service of political views which the press attribute to her husband.

The press should know better. As retired Illinois Appellate Justice Gino DiVito said in an op-ed piece published in today’s Tribune:

“Totally unjustified is the destructive tendency by some to attribute judicial decisions to some sort of bias: to a preordained result, to political identity or payback, to downright corruption. Flippant and erroneous remarks by those who have the privilege of influencing large segments of the public serve no proper purpose and undermine the trust that is so vital to our system of justice. Critical review of court decisions, of course, is desirable. But we owe it to our courts and to ourselves to base such analysis on evidence and applicable law. Criticism should not be based on imagined impropriety or demonization of parties or judges.”

Jerold S. Solovy

This is the text of a letter to the Editors of the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin that I wrote on behalf of the Chicago Bar Association in memory of our long-standing member and good friend, Jerry Solovy.

On January 19, the Chicago legal community, and the Chicago Bar Association in particular, lost its heart and soul with the passing of Jerold S. Solovy. Jerry was always a leader in the Bar, and especially in the Chicago Bar Association.

As a young lawyer, Jerry was a mainstay of the CBA Defense of Indigent Prisoners Committee, recruiting his partners and associates to represent countless defendants in criminal trials at 26th and California. Jerry ultimately chaired that Committee, as well as the CBA’s Special Committee Studying the Adequacy of Legal Representation Afforded Indigent Defendants, the CBA Commission to Study the Criminal Justice System in Cook County, and the CBA Continuing Commission on Administration of Criminal Justice in Cook County. Beyond his formal committee service, Jerry could always be counted on to chair an event and to raise money for any worthy cause sponsored by the CBA.

I am proud to have called Jerry Solovy my law partner for the better part of the past two decades. On behalf of the Chicago Bar Association, I express our condolences to his family and to the many whom he touched with all the good works that he did for the people of the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois. As Jerry was fond of saying, “You are not put on this earth just to make money. You are put on this earth to do good for your fellow persons.” Jerry Solovy did that every day. He will be greatly missed.

Barristers’ Big Band Selected for Lawyers Rock Legends Concert

Congratulations to the Chicago Bar Association Barristers’ Big Band for being selected to play in the ISBA Lawyers Rock Legends Concert on February 3, 2011. The BBB was one of eight bands who won the right to play at the concert, which takes place at Buddy Guy’s Legends, beginning at 7:00 p.m.

Please come out and cheer on the BBB as they represent the CBA on February 3. Tickets are $85 and $125 for VIP Main Floor Seating (which includes food and beverage), or $35 for Upper Level Seating (which includes only two free drink coupons). You can purchase tickets through the ISBA by calling (312) 726-6072 or emailing edriscoll@isba.org. A video of the BBB’s audition piece (“25 or 6 to 4”) can be found on You Tube at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rB-C1Wo-u4&feature=fvwk.

Presidential Action on Travel to Cuba

Following the Chicago Bar Association’s trip to Cuba last fall, several of us who traveled on the trip contacted the White House to urge the President to take action to loosen restrictions on travel by Americans to Cuba. Currently, there is a statutory ban on travel in place, and, since George W. Bush’s first term in office, travel by non-Cuban Americans has been permitted under only very limited circumstances.

On the afternoon of Friday, January 14, I was invited to participate in a conference call in which the White House announced the issuance of new Orders expanding Americans’ ability to travel to Cuba for study and for religious purposes, expanding the number of domestic airports from which airlines may operate direct flights to Cuba and expanding Americans’ ability to send remittances to Cuba to support non-family members. These changes essentially restore where were known as “people to people” policies previously in place during the Clinton administrations in the 1990s, and will make it possible for Americans to engage in broader humanitarian and educational travel to Cuba.

It was an honor for the Chicago Bar Association to be invited to participate in this important announcement. You can find a summary of the new policies at the following link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/14/reaching-out-cuban-people