AP Photos
The cost of doing business and owning a home or car in Illinois could increase soon if a last-minute amendment from January’s lame-duck session is signed into law.
House Bill 3360 was set to die, but at the 11th hour, Senate President Don Harmon of Oak Park introduced a loaded amendment that will drastically alter civil lawsuits. It passed the House a few days later on January 13 around 3 a.m. and is now before Gov. J.B. Pritzker for his review.
Opinion
Excessive litigation already costs Illinois businesses more than $18.9 billion annually. At a personal level, that comes out to a loss of nearly 100,000 jobs across the state and an annual “tort tax” of $761.81 per person due to frivolous lawsuits. In Chicago, that number jumps to $811.13 per person.
Winston & Strawn LLP
In Soboyede v. Commissioner, the United States Tax Court held that an attorney who lived in Minnesota could not deduct travel and lodging expenses associated with his work in Washington, DC.
Holland & Knight
In Coffey v. Comm r, 987 F.3d 808 (8th Cir. 2021), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed and remanded the U.S. Tax Court s decision in Coffey v. Comm r, 150 T.C. 60 (2018).
McLane Middleton, Professional Association
Ideally, any New Hampshire lawyer who handles LLC formations should be thoroughly versed not only in the Revised New Hampshire Limited Liability Company Act and in the legal issues potentially.
A wheelchair-accessible sign is displayed near a San Jose business storefront. File photo.
As a business owner of a franchise for nearly two decades, I always appreciated my community and the passion people had for supporting local family-owned businesses.
Most residents understand the positive impacts of small business. Maybe working for a local burger shop or coffee shop was their first job, so the sense of appreciation for a family-owned operation never left them.
Small business creates a substantial number of jobs in any local community and that translates into millions of jobs statewide. So, you would expect that state and local policy makers would do all that they could to protect these job creators, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic.
By Zach Mottl
Cook, Madison and St. Clair counties just put Illinois on the map for being one of the worst âjudicial hellholesâ in the nation â again.
This discouraging, yet unsurprising news comes from the American Tort Reform Foundationâs newly released 2020 Judicial Hellholes report, an annual report that spotlights the jurisdictions where documented histories of lawsuit abuse have earned them reputations as judicial hellholes, and where constituents are forced to suffer the far-reaching impact of an imbalanced court system.
This year, Cook, Madison and St. Clair counties earned the No. 8 spot on the list of nine hellholes, down from No. 7 last year. While this can technically be viewed as progress, being labeled the nationâs eighth worst hellhole instead of the seventh is hardly what I would call an improvement to our reputation.
Itâs that time of year when youâre thinking holidays and presents under the tree. But business is thinking the annual Judicial Hellholes report.
Judicial hellholes are the most unjust local courts and state civil justice systems in the country. American Tort Reform Foundation, a nonprofit founded in 1997, produces the report to educate the general public about how the American civil justice system operates, the role of tort law in the civil justice system, and the impact of tort law on the private, public and business sectors.
In 2020, the foundation ranks nine judicial hellholes, shining a light on lawsuit abuse and its effects. Louisiana made the report for the eighth consecutive year.