Fall Criminal Law Seminar

remedy that fairly meets the needs of the parties based on the facts of each individual case. If you want to have the ability to exercise judicial discretion, Chancery is the place to do it. But Chancery was also the courtroom that got hit the hardest during the financial crisis that began in 2008. The mortgage foreclosure call, which was originally a short one hour call on Wednesday mornings, mushroomed to the point where it dwarfed the rest of the Chancery call. At one point we had about 10,000 mortgage foreclosure cases pending in Lake County alone. This was a difficult time for me as a judge, but it was also a time when I saw the Lake County judiciary and the bar rise to the occasion and show their mettle.

The mortgage foreclosure call quickly became unmanageable for one judge. Homeowners facing foreclosure would crowd into tiny Courtroom C-302 with people standing along every available inch of wall space, and the line spilling out the door and down the hallway. The call sheet was 5 pages or more on some days, just for a morning court call. It was overwhelming, not just dealing with the volume, but also having to explain the intricacies of mortgage foreclosure law over and over again to each individual homeowner as their case was called. In a charged and intimidating environment, it was difficult if not impossible for these stressed and worried homeowners to understand and retain the vital information I was communicating to them. I couldn’t have managed it without help. That’s when my fellow judges stepped up. Knowing the situation in my courtroom, as soon as other civil judges got done with their morning calls, they would call C-302 and let us know they were available to help. Judges Mullen, McKoski, Dunn and others would take dozens of cases at a time in their courtrooms, and then call again when they were ready to take more. It was a team effort in every sense of the word.

Even with more judges pitching in, it was clear that more was needed. That’s when the bar stepped up. We needed a Mortgage Foreclosure Help Desk so that homeowners could quickly learn about foreclosure law, understand their legal options, and receive information about available housing counseling resources and financial assistance programs. All of this needed to be done during the call, but outside the courtroom, in an environment that was less intimidating and more conducive to communicating important information. In partnership with the LCBA and attorneys Doug Stiles and David Leibowitz, the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit was able to put together a training program for members of the bar who were willing to staff a much-needed Mortgage Foreclosure Help Desk. In a time when their fellow citizens and the community itself was in need (empty foreclosed homes are bad for everybody’s property values), more than 50 Lake County attorneys stepped up for training and service at the Help Desk.

Once the Help Desk was up and running, we reached out to the bar again for help in developing and implementing our Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation Program. With the assistance and expertise of Resolute Systems, Inc., and funding from the Illinois Attorney General’s Office (administering funds from a class action settlement against some of the largest banks in the country) we were able to set up a smart and effective mortgage foreclosure mediation program that built in housing-counseling and the electronic transmission of loan modification paperwork to banks. Again, LCBA members came forward to be trained as mortgage foreclosure mediators. These trained mediators met with homeowners and banks to explore loan modification options that would employ strategies such as interest-rate reduction, loan extension, and waiver of fees and penalties, all in order to keep families in their homes and paying mortgages to the banks. Over the years, hundreds of homes have been saved from foreclosure by this program, keeping families and communities together, all to the benefit of Lake County and its residents.

I think the biggest challenge to the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit and the legal community in Lake County during my time on the bench came with the onset of the pandemic in the spring of 2020. Again, both the judiciary and the bar rose to the occasion and overcame tremendous challenges to continue providing access to justice to the Lake County community.

In Mid-March of 2020, within days, we found ourselves having to radically re-invent how the court system was going to operate. Naively, we thought we were coming up with an emergency plan to get through a few weeks. But then it became a few months, and then we realized that we were going to have to make long-term adjustments to make sure that we continued to operate the court system, providing due process and delivering justice to the people of Lake County while the pandemic dragged on through its many bewildering phases.

With the leadership of Chief Judge Diane Winter, we were able to keep judges, court staff and the bar informed, motivated and moving together in the right direction. With the help of our Court Administration professionals, we were able to identify and access emergency funding to enable us to accommodate facility and technology changes that were critical to our continued operations. We quickly mobilized a Jury Trial Taskforce that started planning for the safe and successful return of jury trials at the earliest possible time. We have a Judicial Information Ser-