For 15 years I have written a nationally recognized Family Law blog at www.illinoisdivorcelawyerblog.com, focusing on complex subjects including Parental Alienation in Illinois child custody cases. Drawing from these blog posts and my research as a longstanding member of Parental Alienation Study Group , this concise book is now available on Amazon. My hope in working on this book is that this book will be a helpful resource for all family law professionals in understanding the phenomenon of child estrangement and alienation in family systems and family law cases.

“I take parental alienation seriously as a real and damaging…
Continue Reading The Guardian ad Litem and Parental Alienation: New Book on Amazon

Employers may have more flexibility to enforce neutral dress code and uniform policies, even when those policies affect employees’ display of union insignia. On September 2, 2026, in a decision involving Starbucks’ New York Reserve Roastery, the Second Circuit rejected the NLRB’s stringent standard to workplace rules that restricts employees’ ability to display union insignia under its Tesla decision. The court concluded that the Board’s Tesla standard did not adequately balance employees’ rights with an employer’s legitimate business interests.
For employers, this is a significant development, but not a nationwide green light to restrict union apparel. While the decision does…
Continue Reading Can Employers Restrict Union Pins and Shirts? Lessons From the Starbucks
Decision

Meta has agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion to resolve claims brought by dozens of states over allegations that Facebook and Instagram were designed in ways that encouraged addictive use among children and teens. Illinois could receive nearly $768 million from the settlement. For Illinois parents, however, the biggest question may not be how much money the state receives. It is what this development means for families whose children have suffered serious mental health injuries after years of compulsive social media use. The settlement does not compensate individual children or families who claim they were harmed by Facebook or…
Continue Reading What Meta’s $768 Million Illinois Settlement Means for Social Media Addiction Lawsuits

Photo credit: iStock.com
Key points

  • ABA’s Mental Wellbeing in the Legal Profession study found women lawyers reported higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms and lower overall well-being than men lawyers
  • Women also reported high stressors like sleep disturbances, family member issues, and loneliness
  • The report found that the way women experience stress varies across race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, and other characteristics
  • Women tied stressors to workplace systems and practices, as well as personal responsibilities, and noted a distrust in workplace well-being resources
  • To support employee well-being, the report recommends reviewing workloads and billable hour requirements, providing protected

…
Continue Reading ABA Research Finds Women Lawyers Report Higher Mental Health Risks Than Men

This year marks 100 years since
the United States Supreme Court decided the landmark zoning case, Euclid v.
Ambler Realty. In this episode, we share a recorded presentation from Ancel
Glink’s David
Silverman, FAICP, and ZoneCo’s Sean Suder, as a sneak
preview of their upcoming live plenary session at the APA-IL State Conference
on September 30, 2026! How does zoning and the legacy of Euclid continue
to shape your community? Email us at podcast@ancelglink.com!

Episode Highlights

  • The
    Public Safety Roots of Zoning: Why early 20th-century industrial chaos,
    street accidents involving children, noise, and pollution prompted

…
Continue Reading 109: The 100-Year Legacy of Euclid

Illinois municipalities have several ways to annex unincorporated property. One of the most consequential is Section 7-1-13 of the Illinois Municipal Code, which permits a municipality, without a landowner’s consent, to annex certain unincorporated territory containing 60 acres or less if the territory is “wholly bounded” by one of several combinations of municipalities and other specified land. In the provision at issue in Husky Trans, Inc. v. Village of Barrington Hills, the qualifying boundaries are one or more municipalities together with a forest preserve district or park district. 65 ILCS 5/7-1-13(a)(e).

The Illinois Supreme Court is now considering a…
Continue Reading Forced Annexation in Illinois: Supreme Court to Decide Whether a Boundary Gap Can Be “De Minimis”

Congress just bought the hemp industry twenty-nine more days. That is the entire substance of the hemp ban delay that cleared the House on September 1, 2026 by a 370-48 vote: the Section 781 restrictions that would have wiped out most of the intoxicating hemp market on November 12 now land on December 11 instead. The Senate had already blessed it 90-6 back in August. It sits on the President’s desk awaiting signature, and the White House is the entity that asked for it in the first place.
If you sell delta-8, THCA flower, or THC beverages, resist the urge…
Continue Reading Hemp Ban Delay: 7 Critical Moves Before Dec. 11

Entering law school can be an intimidating thing for a student as they begin their journey toward a career in law.  From new concepts to heavy workloads and competition, it can take some getting used to. Lea Gaetto, a law clerk at Ankin Law in our personal injury department, found that out first hand in 2025.  “It was very challenging. I never expected school to be that difficult,” said Lea of her 1L year at UIC Law.  In that spirit, Lea decided to share a few tips for those who are starting law school over the next few weeks. 

  • Always

    • …
    Continue Reading Going to Law School for The First Time? Here Are Some Tips

    Question:
    I am the managing partner of a ten lawyer firm in Kansas City, Missouri. There are five partners and five associates in the firm. We are an insurance defense firm and our clients are a handful of insurance companies. Our cases are primarily slip and fall, premises liability, and auto accident cases. I have been the managing partner for two years and frankly I am getting burned out on the position and none of the other partners want the job. I am working 60-70 hours a week and am spending so much time on administrative matters that I don’t…
    Continue Reading Law Firm Management – What is Keeping Law Firm Owners and Managing Partners Awake at Night

    Employers acquiring a business with a unionized workforce may soon have more flexibility to challenge the incumbent union’s status than they have had for decades. On July 21, the D.C. Circuit held in Hospital Menonita de Guayama, Inc. v. NLRB that the National Relations Labor Board (NLRB ) never had the authority to impose its “successor bar” doctrine, a rule that generally requires a successor employer to continue bargaining with an existing union for up to a year after an acquisition. As one of the first appellate decisions to reject an NLRB doctrine since the U.S. Supreme Court ended automatic…
    Continue Reading NLRB Successor Bar Under Fire: What Employers Buying Unionized Businesses
    Need to Know

    An Illinois Appellate Court ruled in favor of a village and village employees in a lawsuit filed by a firefighter claiming he was injured during a training drill.  Hidalgo v. Village of Romeoville.
    A village firefighter attended an advanced technician
    firefighter training course. As part of that training course curriculum, participants were required to perform a “bailout
    drill.” During a bailout drill, participants exit out a third-story
    window of a hose tower, one leg at a time, and then use rappel line to descend
    down the side of the tower. Participants could use a Class 1 harness, Class 3
    pre-sewn…
    Continue Reading Village Immune From Liability For Firefighter’s Injuries During Training Drill

    Potholes, debris, and other obstructions can do a lot of damage not just to vehicles, but to people. If you were injured in an accident caused by a pothole or other road condition, you may have a legal claim against whoever is responsible for the road.
    Claims against a government body have different rules than an ordinary car accident claim, and you generally have less time to file a lawsuit. Because of this, it is a good idea to talk to a lawyer quickly if you think a city or another local government was responsible for your accident in…
    Continue Reading Is the City Liable if I Wreck My Car Because of Bad Road Conditions?

    You paid your Illinois driver’s license reinstatement fee. Maybe you even received confirmation that the payment was processed. But when you check your driving status or visit an Illinois Secretary of State facility, you discover that your license is still suspended or revoked.

    Why?

    One of the most common misconceptions about an Illinois driver’s license suspension is that paying the reinstatement fee automatically restores your driving privileges. In many cases, paying the fee is only one of several requirements that must be satisfied before you can legally drive again.

    If your Illinois driver’s license remains suspended after you paid…
    Continue Reading Why Is My Illinois Driver’s License Still Suspended After I Paid the Reinstatement Fee?

    The intersection of federal privacy law, parental rights, and student gender identity has become one of the most actively litigated areas of education law. For example, on January 28, 2026, the U.S. Department of Education’s Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) found that the California Department of Education (CDE) violated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)—a federal statute granting parents the right to access their children’s education records—by maintaining policies that pressure school officials to conceal students’ gender transitions from their parents. That enforcement action has unfolded alongside significant Supreme Court rulings in Mirabelli v. Bonta and Mahmoud v. …
    Continue Reading School Districts on Notice: Federal Enforcement of Parental Rights Expands Beyond FERPA

    The federal employer credit for paid family and medical leave was scheduled to expire after 2025. Congress instead made the credit permanent and substantially changed how employers may calculate it. For taxable years beginning after December 31, 2025, an eligible employer may continue to calculate the credit based on wages paid to employees while they are on qualifying leave, or elect a new method based on premiums paid for qualifying paid-family-and-medical-leave insurance.

    Treasury and the IRS addressed the new premium method in Notice 2026-28, 2026-34 I.R.B. 177. The guidance provides employers with rules they may rely upon while Treasury…
    Continue Reading IRS Notice 2026-28: New Guidance on Calculating the Paid Family and Medical Leave Credit