From the President

Happy Holidays to you and your staff and we hope that, as we enter into a new year, your firm continues to prosper and grow.

We have enjoyed having you as part of our ABI family. As another year comes to an end, and we look toward the New Year, we sincerely hold our relationship with you in high regard. We will continue to do all we can to serve you in the best possible way.

For us, 2008 has been a year of introducing new products and services for you to take advantage of and making sure our customer service and production is running top notch on the fulfillment end. We always keep our standards consistently high so you can continue to rely on and trust us to handle everything you send our way.

All of us at Atkinson-Baker wish you a wonderful Holiday Season and a Happy New Year.

Best regards,
Sheila Atkinson-Baker

Deciding Who to Depose (part two)

By Stewart Weltman, Esq.

In Part I of “Deciding Who to Depose” I discussed why a blunderbuss approach to creating a deposition program is inadvisable – both because of litigation costs and litigation strategy.  This article is about the basic decisional approaches that one needs to take in order to develop a meaningful deposition program designed to get your case properly prepared for summary judgment and trial.

In my prior article, I ended by discussing the six main categories into which witnesses can be placed.  I will now address each category.  But before addressing the categories here is an approach that should be used for every potential witness.   One of my good friends [and one of the finest trial lawyers in the country that I know] relayed to me a very interesting approach that he takes – he operates under the presumption that no depositions should be taken and that the person asserting that a deposition should be taken must do so by clear and convincing evidence.

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Attorney Spotlight:
Peter Bibler, 2008 Chicago Bar Fellowship Recipient

By Barbara Lynch, Staff Writer

“Thirty-seven million Americans — more than 12 percent of the population — live in poverty. Lawyers can help them avoid unwarranted evictions, escape abusive relationships, retain custody of their children, obtain or preserve desperately needed benefits and services, challenge policies that discriminate against the poor and fight employment discrimination. This is vitally important work.” – Chicago Sun-Times, Letters to the Editor, September 19, 2008, Lawrence D. Wood, Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago

The phrase, “equal justice under the law,” that is engraved on the front of the United States Supreme Court building, applies to all types of underprivileged and disadvantaged groups needing legal assistance, not just those in poverty.

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