The Disgrace of the Dupage County Bar Association
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The Disgrace of the DuPage County Bar Association The Wannabe Journal of the DuPage County Bar Association Volume 28, Issue 8 April 2016 Table of Contents Who says the library is obsolete? Jessica Tandy Editor-in-Chief News Hume Cronyn & Associate Editor Editor’s Message 2 Editorial Board Events Don Ameche Wilfred Brimley President’s Message Gwen Verdon 3 12 InGrief Jack Gilford By Tally Hoofbender Brian Dennehy 4 Former President’s Message Maureen Stapleton 13 Video Game Review - Clint Howard Call of Jury Duty: Black Robe Ops Steve Guttenberg Charles Lampkin By Byron Heartydough, Jr. Art Selwyn Ben Luckett 14 Judicial Profile of Elihu Smails Alma Finley By Sean Penn Joe Finley Articles Bernie Lefkowitz 15 DCBA Seeks Section Suckers John Dexter 8 Thunderdome Arbitration Center Comes to Wheaton Leaders! Pops Jack Bonner By Byron Heartydough, Sr. 15 Texting Cheat Sheet – Courtesy of Pillsbury DCBA Senior Lawyers Division Walter 9 Miranda: A Helpful Suggestion for Law Day 2016 Lou Pine 16 Go Fund Me Campaign Started for By Clarence Over-by Darrow New Law Firm Sign Jacki Hamler By Edward R. Merlot DCBA Liaison/Advertising 10 The Fluff Amendment to Rule 23 Ross Creative Works By Mark Fuddruckerburg Important Announcement: 16 Graphic Design We Ain’t Drunk. We Just Drinkin’ Kelmscott Communications 18 Profile of Judge Dredd Printing of Judicial Exchange By Sean Connery Jonathan Crannell Photoshop 19 Storage Wars: Wheaton 20 Classifieds DCBA Grief April 2016 1 From the Editor Because We’re Swine...We Cross the Line By Christopher J. Maurer In the dark recesses of a bar in Winfield, a the Art of Objecting to Standard Christopher J. Maurer is an cabal of lawyers from the DCBA Brief’s Interrogatories” article); attorney with the law firm of editorial board huddle around drinks and Anderson & Associates, P.C., nachos. In between gulps and crunches, they 5. No mockery of the judiciary (there goes half where he has concentrated his mutter, they scribble on napkins, and they the magazine); and practice in family law for over a argue about what’s funny and what’s just decade in DuPage, Cook, Kane, plain dumb. They are working on the back/ 6. No mockery of past, present or future Will and Kendall Counties. upside-down half of the April issue, a.k.a. The DCBA Presidents (there goes the other Christopher is a member of the DuPage County Bar Association. Grief. Most often their argument turns on half). He is a trained Guardian ad whether or not a particular topic crosses that Litem and certified Mediator for treacherous border known only as . The Line. After reviewing the contents of this year’s the 18th Judicial Circuit, and On one side of the Line we have eye-rolling Grief, you’ll conclude that these rules are as serves as a member of the puns and sanitized frivolity, safe for nuns and ironclad as the local 10-page limit for motions. DCBA Brief’s editorial board. children (think Ziggy with a lobotomy). On Well, we tried our best. Christopher received his Juris the other side of the Line, when we get too far Doctorate from Loyola University beyond the pale, we encounter comedic My big concern is all the lame lampoons, lewd School of Law in 1997 and his Bachelor of Science from concepts shunned by decent humanity: ideas limericks, and lathered lambastings that fell the University of Illinois at that would outrage Louis C.K.; personal on the cutting-room floor. Rumor has it that Urbana-Champaign, College of insults fit for a Comedy Central Roast; and foul some devious soul swept them up and stitched Communications in 1994. phrases that would make George Carlin’s list them together into some dreadful tome of of Seven Dirty Words look like a haiku written sanity-blasting insultery and obnoxiosity. by Mister Rogers. Even now it sits waiting in the DuPage Court- house library, on a dusty bottom shelf near the Obviously, Rule #1 in putting together the Grief IICLE binders, tucked in between Perfecting is this: Don’t Cross the Line. The problem with Mechanics Liens and the Illinois Necronomicon, enforcing this rule is that no one can pinpoint waiting for someone to discover it, to read the the Line’s precise location. It’s not on Google words, and . well, the resulting cataclysm is Maps, and Rand McNally hung up on me. To just too horrible to imagine. be safe, we tried to define the Line by coming up with some sub-rules: The Grief would not be possible without the help of John Pcolinski, Terry Benshoof, 1. No scatological humor (we flushed all those Brian Dougherty, Raleigh Kalbfleisch, jokes down the toilet); Sean McCumber, Timothy Klein, Azam Nizammudin, Jonathan Crannell, 2. No questioning of attorney fashion choices; Christine McTigue, and the rest of the editorial board for their submissions, ideas, 3. No politics (there go all Terry Benshoof’s and hard work in putting this schlock-bomb Lyndon LaRouche jokes); together. And if you don’t laugh, you can still get that 2016 Ziggy wall calendar for half-off 4. No religion (there goes that “Zen and on Amazon! 2 DCBA Grief April 2016 President’s Message “Hoping for Growth”: A Theme to Measure up to By Jay “Stimpy” Laraia How we doing? op to emphasize who the “big man” around the office was going to be) in prioritizing I am sure none of you knew this but I work my efforts. So it should come as no surprise for my Dad (rather than my wife, Ted). It is that my proudest and most significant probably also not generally known that I accomplishment as President of the DCBA have been shaving since the age of four; but I to date has been the creation of the digress. On my way to becoming DCBA Committee Overseeing DuPage Geriatric President, I grew up (in a manner of speaking) and Elderly legal Representatives. hearing stories about and from the legendary lawyers of DuPage County including the towering legal mind of Joseph Laraia. Those We have preliminarily set eligibility for guys had it all. They were allowed to drink at the CODGER to include any lawyer who lunch and then go back to finish their trials. has reached the age of 55 (or roughly 80% There was still the death penalty to contend of our members). We will hold monthly with and fist fights at bar functions were meetings of CODGER at Emmett’s Fix-It considered socially acceptable. They worked Shop commencing promptly at 4:30 in all hard and they played hard and they did it all months when the sun is still shining at 4:30 with a sort of panache and eloquence to be and will focus on keeping those Selectric envied. I mean, we’re talking about guys who typewriters and other state of the art office called their wives “babe” and their assistants equipment in good shape. We are also “girls” – a sort of DuPage County Rat Pack if exploring health and wellbeing issues for the you will. members of CODGER including commis- sioning a study of the side effects of exposure At my installation, I told all of those assem- to carbon paper when mixed with alcohol bled that during my term as President I would and using blue ink to relieve joint pain in be striving to provide more benefits and pro- one’s writing hand. It is my hope that the gramming, increasing member involvement, CODGER will keep these members emphasize training and resources for new active and contributing to DCBA for many lawyers and transitioning attorneys (i.e. the years to come (because God knows the guys who are “clearly playing the back nine” new kids are too busy with their Twizzler as it were). Along the way, I have had the and Facetime pages to join up and the only support and active direct involvement of my growing area of association revenue is the Dad (looking back, I think it was a mistake number of Sustaining Members who have to have the dual swearing in after the main nothing else to spend their Social Security ceremony but I really just wanted the photo checks on). DCBA Grief April 2016 3 Former President’s Message I Can’t Believe They Forgot My President’s Message By Lynn Cavallo Editor’s Note- A glaring omission from last year’s “Thank you Umberto for delivering the Grief has been brought to our attention, for which Invocation. Next time, how ‘bout you try it we belatedly apologize. We failed to print a spoof in English?” president’s message from former DCBA President Lynn Cavallo. The document went missing, but “I’d be remiss at this time if I did not also now, deep from the vaults of the DCBA Grief mention the good folks at OFFLINE archives (which consists of 2 manila folders, a binder Productions, Goodyear, STP, Skoal Chewing clip, and a Dukes of Hazzard Trapper-Keep- Tobacco, Anheuser Busch and the Verdict er) we have found something even better! For Restaurant for their sponsorships. Personally, those who are nostalgic for the days of yesteryear, I am looking forward to seeing the uniforms before the manic grin of Flat Jay began infesting our we are getting for our DCBA staff members collective consciousness, we give you a transcript to wear with our sponsors’ logos all over them of Lynn Cavallo’s remarks at the Mega Meeting and to the neon signs for the ARC.” during her tenure as president, which has been compared in eloquence to the oratory of Sister “So another Mega Meeting has come Mary Elephant of the Our Lady of 115th Street around and I feel a bit like Buzz Light Year – (Google it .