Now that May is here please remember to sign up for the PCBA Professional Responsibility Webinar to be held on Friday, May 14th, so you can earn 2 credit hours for professional responsibility. The 2 credits hours include 1 hour for diversity and inclusion and 1 hour of ethics. The PCBA is glad to help you meet your continuing legal education obligations. Also check out the details for the Annual Meeting to be held on July 15th . You have to attend in order to enjoy the events we have all missed over the past year. Plan to take a break from your Zoom and Teams meetings and reintroduce yourself to your friends and colleagues. We look forward to seeing you there!
The past month has brought the concept of justice into everyday conversations with our family, friends, and neighbors who are not lawyers. As lawyers, our view of justice is typically distinct from what is reported in the press or discussed on social media. Still, during the past month that included the George Floyd trial, and where various forms of justice and injustice continue to occur, all in too many variants for any one of us to track, it is encouraging that back in 1958 Justice Schwartz of the Illinois Appellate Court penned the following analysis explaining where one may start the analysis to seek justice. The analysis does not fix a destination point. Pondering the quoted words also brings to mind the duties we have as counsel, as elected and appointed representatives, and as judges. While we each have differing views of the facts and even the law, the overarching goal of justice still stands as the goal that each of us strives to attain. The words that follow can help us start off our personal check lists for justice. Moreover, current events inform us of the need to continue our discussions on this subject on a regular basis.
“Justice has been defined by some legal historians as the 'enforcement of covenants.' It has never been considered relevant for one of the parties to plead that he has become distressed by reason of the cost of performance. Other remedies have been provided for such situations. David Hume, whose legal philosophy had great influence in the shaping of the principles embodied in our constitutions, federal and state, laid down three fundamental laws, 'that of the stability of possession,' 'of its transference by consent,' and 'of the performance of promises.' He considered that the peace and security of human society depended upon them and that there was no 'possibility of establishing a good correspondence among men, where these are neglected.' (Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, p. 526.) Of course, these are only philosophic generalizations and have no effect unless implemented by law. But it is well for those who with rule and line undertake the measure of a court's decision to bear them in mind.” Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Michigan Cent. R. Co., 18 Ill.App.2d 462 (1st Dist. 1958).
PCBA President,
Ambrose V. McCall