Proving Proximate Cause in Malpractice Cases
April 2009
Trial and appellate courts in Illinois have struggled to determine the plaintiffs proper burden of proving proximate cause in “lost chance” medical malpractice cases, the authors argue. They offer several appellate court decisions to make their point that confusion persists.
Proof of proximate causation is required in all personal injury and wrongful death actions. In most instances, the proof is self-evident.
The Seven Deadly Sins of Legal Ethics
January 2009
Despite the tone of most lawyer jokes, we are only human. As such, since the beginning of the profession, lawyers have been making mistakes. Lawyers have occasionally been greedy, lazy and covetous. The early Christian philosophers who developed the classification of sin surely weren’t thinking about lawyers as they compiled the Seven Deadly Sins, but since the inception of the profession, lawyers have been guilty of these sins in some fashion in relatively copious amounts. This article will discuss the Seven Deadly Sins as they apply to the practice of law. In so doing, we will explicate some cases that reveal the greedy, slothful, envious, prideful, wrathful, gluttonous and lustful attorneys whose foibles have hurled them into the sometimes merciless hands of our judiciary.
Lessons from Jury Research
April 2008
Sarah Parikh and Terrence Lavin
190 / Illinois Bar Journal / Volume 96/ April 2008
Reprinted with permission from the April 2008 issue of the Illinois Bar Journal.
Expanding the Use of Medical Treatises in Illinois Trials
August 2006
426 / ILLINOIS BAR JOURNAL / Volume 94 / August 2006
By Terrence J. Lavin and Michelle L. Wolf
Reprinted with permission from the August 2006 issue of the Illinois Bar Journal.
Leaving You in Good Hands
June 2004
By Terrence J. Lavin
284 / Illinois Bar Journal / Volume 92 / June 2004
Reprinted with permission from the June 2004 issue of the Illinois Bar Journal.
Preaching to the Choir on the Town Hall Trail
May 2004
As your ISBA president, I have been traveling the state speaking to lawyers about the pleasures and the pitfalls of practicing law in Illinois. I was delighted to accept the request of the Special Supreme Court Committee on Professionalism to preside over a series of town hall meetings during my tenure.
The committee was formed by the supreme court several years ago after a successful civility symposium was conducted in DuPage County.
