Note To Potential Judicial Candidate Clients:

In order for you to determine whether you want to hire me as your election lawyer, please view and print (or download) the below listed documents including my résumé, a sample retainer contract and a standard billing showing a "worst case scenario" wherein the state senate candidate was properly prepared but failed to produce a sufficient signature "cushion" and we had to defend against an objection, fighting for every signature.

Over the last 30 years, I have represented candidates for offices ranging from suburban library board trustee to President of the United States. My services have ranged from advising on office selection, design of successful petition campaigns and campaign strategy to local election board objections to ballot access to federal court litigation over ballot position and signage in polling places.

I am uniquely skilled and experienced in representing Illinois judicial candidates. Having served in leadership capacities in the judicial evaluation process for the Chicago Bar Association, the Chicago Council of Lawyers, and the Independent Voters of Illinois - Independent Precinct Organization (IVI-IPO), I give extensive and practical counsel through the rating and endorsement process. I frequently lecture and am regularly sought out by the media to publicly comment on ethical concerns for judicial candidates.

As careful as it normally is, the State Board of Elections publishes and distributes sample candidate petition forms which contain dozens of legal and practical problems. It is unwise and, frankly, careless to use anyone's pre-printed forms when a form designed specifically for you and your campaign will eliminate risks of errors and serve as a campaigning tool as well. I urge you to retain a lawyer who can provide you with forms and instructions customized to you, your style of campaign, your district and the office you seek.

As in most endeavors, early preparation is best advised. I have never had a candidate I advised early (and who followed my advice) fail to qualify for the ballot. After being certain that the candidate meets or exceeds all legal and practical qualifications, my next step is the design and drafting of nomination papers which are both legally compliant and actually aid, rather than impede, the campaign. The money saved on not paying an experienced lawyer to draft the nomination papers is dwarfed by the cost of a defense to a challenge to ballot access, a public gaffe, or the abject embarrassment of failing to achieve ballot access.

As is always the situation in which there is a relatively small group of clients and an even smaller group of lawyers available to represent them, I may already represent someone with interests contrary to yours which would then give me a conflict of interest which would prevent me from representing you. Should you wish me to represent you, you need to let me know your intentions and I will survey my current client list to determine whether I am available. If you were wait until well into the campaign and then seek to retain me to defend you or prosecute a ballot access objection against an opponent, the changes are quite good that I would then be unavailable. While neither you nor I (nor any of my current clients) should consider waiving any presently known direct conflict, the retainer contract can be modified to detail the disposition of potential future or indirect conflicts.

I am pleased to have good relations in both major parties and with all significant party factions and organized independents. The ideal situation is for me to prepare a candidate and campaign so well that he or she captures the party endorsement and then goes on to win the primary election. This is how most of my clients who are now in office got there. Waiting until endorsement time passes before hiring counsel results in both being unprepared to claim entitlement to an endorsement and also being unprepared to mount a campaign.

Best wishes for a successful campaign.