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Clifford’s Notes, Chicago Lawyer April 1, 2013 By Robert A. Clifford I recently returned from an American Bar Association meeting in Texas where one of the Continuing Legal Education programs offered was titled, “The Juice Isn’t Worth the Squeeze: The Impact of Tort Reform on Plaintiffs’ Lawyers and Access to Civil Justice.” A panel of nearly a half-dozen lawyers and judges from Texas headed by Stephen Daniels, research professor for the American Bar Foundation in…

Carrageenan is being studied by researchers at the University of Illinois in Chicago and University of Chicago to determine if it has ill effects on some people’s gastrointestinal systems, the Chicago Tribune reported in a recent article (“Food Additive Stirs Calls for Scrutiny,” March 18, 2013). UIC physician and professor Joanne Tobacman has been looking at the health effects of this food additive for years and in 2008 she petitioned the Food and Drug Administration…

March 26, 2013 Kevin P. Durkin, partner at Clifford Law Offices, has been invited to speak at the American Bar Association Section of Litigation Annual Conference to be held in Chicago April 24-26. Durkin will speak on a panel with Dan Webb of Winston & Strawn on Improper Conduct and Statements in Opening and Closing Arguments. Experienced panelists will discuss what to do when opposing counsel makes inflammatory or improper statements at trial. The program…

A bus carrying the women’s lacrosse team from Seton Hall University crashed off the Pennsylvania Turnpike Saturday, killing the driver, the team’s pregnant coach and her unborn child. Many team members were injured when the bus crashed into a tree at the bottom of a grassy slope. The 23 on the bus were headed to a Saturday game at Millersville University, about 50 miles from the crash. A memorial mass was held Sunday night at…

March 15, 2013 Robert A. Clifford, senior partner at Clifford Law Offices, has been invited to speak April 24 at the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Litigation’s “Anatomy of a Trial” during the Section’s Annual Conference in Chicago. Clifford will be joining lawyers from across the country to speak on a number of topics during the day-long program based on the Sacco & Vanzetti trial including case analysis, theory of the case, direct examination,…

March 15, 2013 Robert A. Clifford, senior partner at Clifford Law Offices, and a number of staff members and their family and friends worked the phones at a recent pledge drive night at WTTW, Chicago’s public television station. Clifford Law Offices helped take in 137 calls that grossed nearly $40,000 for the station that evening. Clifford is a member of the Board of Trustees of the station. The firm initiated closed captioning for locally produced…

March 13, 2013 Shannon McNulty, attorney at Clifford Law Offices, has been invited to participate in the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association (ITLA) Professionalism Seminar offering four hours of professional responsibility credit. McNulty will join a number of attorneys who will be speaking during the morning-long program May 3 at the Oak Brook Hills Marriott Resort, 3500 Midwest Rd., Oak Brook. McNulty’s topic is “Ethics of Witness Preparation.” To register, call ITLA at 800-252-8501 or email…

Two North Carolina women who are also food bloggers learned about two additives contained in the popular Kraft Macaroni & Cheese that are banned in various European countries yet still are in the product on U.S. store shelves. They started a petition to have the additives removed. So far, more than 220,000 people have signed the petition asking Kraft to remove yellow dye 5 and yellow dye 6 from the popular food. The two women,…

Tracy A. Brammeier, clerk at Clifford Law Offices and a second year law student at Loyola University School of Law, wrote an essay that was published by the American Bar Association Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section (TIPS) in 2012. Her essay, which focuses on the lack of rail security in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.’s transit systems, won the 2012 TIPS essay competition on the topic of Disasters Caused by Foreign and Domestic…