News Tag: Access to Justice Commission

November 30, 2018

It was 6 ½ Years Ago Today…

Granted, that is not as catchy as the Beatles’ lyrics in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. But in access to justice circles, it was a pretty big deal.

It was June 13, 2012, to be exact, when the Illinois Supreme Court entered the order creating the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Access to Justice, and […]

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February 8, 2017

Have Opinions about Pro Bono?

The Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Access to Justice wants to hear from you on the pro bono survey they recently sent to all Illinois lawyers. The CBF is cosponsoring the survey with the Commission, the Illinois Bar Foundation, and the Public Interest Law Initiative. This survey is part of a national effort led by […]

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January 24, 2017

Our Language Problem

If You See Something, Do Something!

As lawyers trained to worship at the altar of precedent, there are all kinds of bad habits we can pick up without even thinking about them. There of course are many legal principles we continue to follow today because they are critical underpinnings of our society that rightly have stood the test of time—the rule of law and the fundamentals of our Constitution, for example. There unfortunately also is a lot of legal terminology and procedure that we continue to use today for a very different reason: because it is just the way we always have done it. And breaking out of that default pattern is one of the easiest steps we all can take right now to improve access to justice.

I got a great lesson on this early in my legal career.

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August 11, 2015

Signed into Law! Groundbreaking Veterans Legal Program Will Move Forward

Veterans and military families in Illinois will have much greater access to necessary legal help after key amendments to the Access to Justice Act were signed into law by Governor Rauner last week.

The Access to Justice Act, originally passed in 2013, created a pilot program to develop and support a much-needed hotline and network of […]

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