How Digital Recorders Will Improve Access to Justice

Like other courts across the nation, Cook County is seeing increasing numbers of self-represented parties in the courts. At the same time that litigants are finding it harder to pay for legal services, Cook County has a projected budget deficit of $152 million for 2014, which has resulted in a reduc...
May 28, 2015

The Daily Law Bulletin Covers Judicial Elections in their Law Day Issue

The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin examined the issue of money in judicial elections in their annual Law Day issue last Sunday, April 26th. Staff Attorney Elizabeth Monkus was among the people interviewed for the article, which was framed around the Williams-Yulee case, which was still pending in the Su...
May 11, 2015

SCOTUS Ruling on Judicial Campaign Ethics Rules

Chicago Appleseed and the Chicago Council of Lawyers were invited to join an amicus brief filed in Williams-Yulee v. the Florida Bar, examining whether a rule of judicial conduct that prohibits candidates for judicial office from personally soliciting campaign funds violates the First Amendment. The...
April 29, 2015

State Farm, Judicial Elections, Integrity and Recusal

In 2011, Chicago Appleseed, with assistance from pro bono attorneys at DLA Piper filed an amicus brief in the Illinois Supreme Court case, Avery v. State Farm. We took no position on the merits of the case, which involved a consumer dispute over replacement parts for insured cars damaged in crashes,...
March 10, 2015

Merit Selection and Judicial Elections

With oral arguments in Williams-Yulee before the Supreme Court earlier this year, attention has once again focused on the impact of money in judicial campaigns. The question of how judges can remain impartial looms large when judges must stand for general election or receive a sufficient number of v...
January 29, 2015