Editor's Page

By Michael W. Tootooian

Welcome to our eighth issue of The Tort Reporter. As always we are looking for members of the Tort Litigation Committee to join the newsletter committee, either as permanent members or contributing writers. Writing articles for our committee is a great way to network with your fellow attorneys, impress your clients (and your mother) and build up your résumé. More importantly, Beth McMeen, CLE Director for the CBA, in response to a written inquiry from me earlier this year has stated that writing substantive law related articles for our newsletter will qualify for MCLE credit under MCLE Rule 795(d)(7)(ii).

The newsletter is available via the CBA web site. Once there, enter your account number and password, click the Committees tab to get the submenu and click Committees Home Page, select the Tort Litigation Committee by clicking the arrow under CBA Practice Committees then click the link entitled “The Tort Reporter.” Recently, a link has been added to archive previous issues of The Tort Reporter.

If you are interested in joining the newsletter committee or submitting articles, please contact me at mwtootooian@aol.com or our Committee Chair. The newsletter committee meets immediately after the conclusion of each Tort Litigation Committee meeting for about ten minutes with further communications via e-mails between committee meetings.

This issue of The Tort Reporter has two articles. They are as follows:

The first article is an interview of Judge Jennifer Duncan-Brice by Daniel Extrom. Judge Brice discusses some of the problems facing judges such as dealing with areas of specialized knowledge requiring experts and how she handled such situation to get a better understanding on the issues in order to make an informed ruling.

The second article is by Kenya Jenkins and is an analysis of the Supreme Court’s decision in Vision Point v Hass, 226 Ill. 2d 334 (2007). This case has a number of important rulings affecting the handling and processing of Supreme Court Rule 216 Requests to Admit, eliminating some of the more draconian interpretations of this rule.