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  • Trial Notebook

    Steven P. Garmisa
    Agent's vow not enough to be binding
    The "regional sales coordinator's agreement" between Darren Galgano and American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus, better known as AFLAC, said he was an independent contractor who did not have authority to rent office space on behalf of the insurer.

    • Lawyers' Forum

      Karen Conti
      This Day in Legal History
      See if you know what happened on This Day in Legal History with Karen Conti.

    • Lawyers' Forum

      Backward Glances
      Law Bulletin headlines and slogans this week in history.

    • Lawyers' Forum

      7th Circuit extends the new value exception to include insiders
      On Feb. 14, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision, in a case of impression among the circuit courts, considering whether a competitive auction is required when a plan of reorganization provides a debtor's nonequity holding insider the sole opportunity to acquire new equity in the reorganized debtor.

    • Civil Rights

      James G. Sotos
      Court: Village must face harassment claim
      In February 2011, Jane Doe began interning for the Forest Park Police Department under Lt. Steven Weiler's supervision. During the internship, police officer Young Lee recruited Doe to participate in the department's alcohol stings aimed at liquor stores and bars which served alcohol to minors.

    • Lawyers' Forum

      Amy Widman
      When interpreting laws, courts should consider how they were sold to voters
      I spend a lot of time thinking about statutory interpretation. As a professor of legislation, I teach the dominant theories of textualism, intentionalism and purposivism.

    • Lawyers' Forum

      Letter to the editor: CPS fails test on school closure
      The Cook County Bar Association, the oldest predominantly black bar association in the United States, opposes the Chicago Public Schools' decision to close Calhoun North School, one of 54 public schools identified by the CPS for closure this year.
  • Court: Fax damages insurable
    The Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday that hefty damages for unsolicited faxes are remedial — designed to compensate recipients for costs they incur when receiving the faxes — and therefore are insurable.
  • Evanston company loses shirt dispute with Gap
    The ordinary observer would not mistake two shirts sold by Gap Inc. for shirts made by an Evanston company, a federal judge has held.
  • Obama fills D.C. Circuit seat after five-year effort
    WASHINGTON — After five years of trying, President Barack Obama has placed his first nominee on a key appeals court in Washington.
  • Coroner reports St. Clair County judge died of cocaine overdose
    A former longtime prosecutor who died at the cabin of a fellow southwestern Illinois judge, now under federal investigation, succumbed to a cocaine overdose, a coroner announced today.
  • Gun advocates challenge Connecticut law
    HARTFORD, Conn. — Groups that support gun rights, pistol permit holders and gun sellers filed a lawsuit in federal court Wednesday against Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and other state officials, arguing the state's new gun control law violates their constitutional rights.
  • U. of C.'s Schill a 24/7 dean
    The parents of Michael H. Schill gave their son three career options — medicine, dentistry or law. Without a strong aptitude for science or math, Schill decided not to pursue a medical license.
  • 'Stop-and-frisk' judge defends her approach
    NEW YORK — The federal judge presiding over civil rights challenges to the stop-and-frisk practices of the New York Police Department has no doubt where she stands with the government.
  • Public defenders win case over excessive workload
    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court sided with public defenders Thursday in a ruling that said lawyers who defend the poor can seek to refuse new cases if their workload and limited money would keep them from providing defendants adequate representation.
  • 87-year-old woman loses to Trump
    An 87-year-old grandmother took on billionaire Donald Trump. And today — she lost.
  • Vermont decides to pursue patent trolls with suits
    MONTPELIER, Vt. — Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin signed into law Wednesday a novel measure aimed at protecting companies from so-called patent trolling, the practice of making deceptive claims of patent infringement in the hopes of collecting licensing or settlement money.
  • Immigration reform effort includes new asylum rules
    SEATTLE — As Congress debates legalizing about 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, immigration advocates are pushing plans they say will open the asylum process for thousands of more people who flee persecution in their home countries.
  • IRS official says she is innocent of any misdeeds
    WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the storm over the agency's targeting of conservative groups told Congress today that she had done nothing wrong in the episode, and then invoked her constitutional right to refuse to answer lawmakers' questions.