Key takeaways

• Active listening helps lawyers build trust and better understand clients, witnesses, and colleagues.
• Questioning assumptions improves decision-making and helps avoid misunderstandings.
• Creative problem-solving improves when judgment is suspended and ideas are explored before being evaluated.
• Adaptability and communication help lawyers navigate uncertainty, difficult conversations, and changing circumstances.
• Human skills like listening, collaboration, creativity, and resilience

How would you rate your most recent interaction with the Illinois court system? The Illinois Supreme Court and the Illinois Judicial Conference want to know.
The Illinois Judicial Branch is requesting feedback from lawyers, their clients, and members of the public about their recent court experiences through the Illinois Circuit Court User Experience Survey.
The survey

Our Professionalism Spotlight series highlights Illinois legal professionals who demonstrate the ideals of professionalism in their careers.
In this Professionalism Spotlight, we spoke with Howard Ankin, a partner at Ankin Law, the Chicago-based firm he owns with his father and fellow partner, Paul B. Ankin.
Howard focuses his practice on plaintiff’s personal injury and petitioner’s workers’

Key points:

• AI can now be used to perform many rudimentary legal tasks that lawyers have traditionally performed.
• Human skills such as relationship building, problem-solving, leadership, and collaboration — which have always been at the heart of good lawyering — are, therefore, becoming increasingly important.
• While many of these human skills do not come naturally to lawyers,