this proceeding and he will ultimately fully participate in sight the outcome of this case having said that you may p court the department argued that players for barred from receiving the fia word under the first district's decision in the uptown case in the uptown case the first district held that a nonprofit organization represented by its own employees is not entitled to feel were it under forty and the department alleged that plaintiff illinois policy institute and a law firm representing in this case the liberty justice center are the same entity and therefore illinois policy was being represented by its employees and therefore was barred from receiving fees under the up down decision but as we've shown in our briefs the record cannot support the conclusion that illinois stamp well the uptown case simply held again that a nonprofit organization represented by its own employees doesn't qualify for a work of attorney fees for some of the same reasons that and  a pro se plaintive wouldn't qualify for attorney's fees where there were some because it is substantially similar that in as much as a party is in effect representing itself and the up town court held  might try to use for suits to just to generate fees to generate funds for itself but the other town decision didn't say anything about the situation we have here and so it it can't possibly have controlled as the trial court said it controlled because here you don't have an organization representing it with its effectively representing itself you have lawyers employed by one organization representing another organization and so and so uptown had no reason to talk about links between organizations or world links would be sufficient to justify denying fees and so whether uptown was right or wrong about the situation addressed with  nonprofit represented by its own employees it certainly doesn't control here because this is a different situation and so when the trial court order to apply to simply apply uptown  groups promote each other on their respective websites or whether it's because one group provides funding to the other it didn't say whether it just doesn't matter that the true groups are legally separate or it doesn't matter that they have different boards of directors it didn't say how you would weigh those things against each other it didn't say anything about who would have the burden of proof in the end in these things it just needs to be summarily concluded that they were  court to make those findings that you're saying were not included were respectfully yes because the court was recognizing a new exception to foist the provision that no court has ever recognized saying that when one group or represents another and they have some links that's enough to justify denying them thieves but it didn't the street warriors they were employed east liberty justice center correct that's correct were they if you were to prevail here and then remain get one two hundred dollars and change whatever was where's that money going to go to the lawyers we're going to go to the film policy that would go to the liberty justice center as that's correct they're seeking to recover attorney fees that they in theory had to spend in order to pursue this quite right and might say that whether the representation was pro bono because the whole purpose of an attorney for your work including of oil in particular is to make plaintiffs better more able to bring claims to enforce the statu return is that represent clients pro bono could receive fees if they were awarded they would be much less inclined able to bring those kinds of suits because they could never be compensated for the resources they expended so it serves the purpose of for them because there's no attorney client there's not even an attorney client relationship there but if representation is pro bono then courts do award statutory attorneys fees so the trial court didn't explain the rule that it was applying to in making this exception for use fee provision and the department hasn't explained the rule that once this court to apply either let alone justified creating a new exception to provision and there is no good reason for the four to recognize a new exception here first of all the plain language for it just says that if a plaintiff prevails the court shall a work of such person reasonable attorneys fees and costs it doesn't have any exceptions and that is illinois supreme court has only ever recognized one exception to further gives back to my point monuc of this award is not for the benefit of the point that you se right i mean that's what you just indicated well you will compensate the attorneys as as attorney for your words always do it including in every situation where attorneys are representing the client pro bono and t e and the plaintiff is going to pay those fees over to the attorney for that program pro bono representation that's the way it works under federal law and in one thousand nine hundred three lawsuits of representation is pro bono the statutes interest in having the stack reduce the interest behind the statute and having it in forced and also force encourage support of the public policy in favor of encouraging lawyers to engage in pro bono representation by making it a hammer identified three reasons to not award fees to an attorney representing himself in a forty eight case but none of those reasons apply here but one reason was because pro se attorneys don't incur fees and that's true but it's trying representing himself or herself cannot occur incur fees owed to himself or herself because there's no attorney client  in the absence of an attorney client relationship it's impossible for someone to incur tourney's fees but that's certainly not impossible under a situation where you have to turn these employees by one organization representing another worker ization and that's true whether the work is ations have some links between them or not there certainly could be fees incurred whether that's under a billing arrangement where they're going to pay a flat fee or pay by the hour or whether it's a contingency for that the liberty justice center should receive fees in this case because illinois policy wasn't force or didn't have to pay it any fees to get it to take this case and therefore fees weren't a barrier illinois policy pursuing its claim just as there not to be pro se attorneys pursuing his plane but that can't be right because again if that were right then no party representing pro bono would ever be to get attorney's fees and that would just serve the purpose of for his fee provision which is to make it easier for plaintiffs to find counsel and bring claims that have merit and also if it turns were less the good reasons why why attorneys who represent clients pro bono should receive because it because it serves public policy and there's a wisconsin decision we say also that i think of which the school district that big goes into those public policy reasons as well why pro bono attorneys should limit our time making the distinction of a warrior who represents himself or herself with a party that is representing pro attorneys representing themselves would encourage those attorney plaintiffs to go seek legal counsel to get it by subjective legal advice on whether their claim has merit before they go to court which would help weed out claims that are tonight that i feel is in this type of situation where there is an attorney client relationship and the department argues that the the advice that the plaintiff would get in situation where they're going to a chinese from an allegedly linked organization wouldn't be objective because of the links between the two but that's really contrary to the way the courts look at the attorney john returning client relationship in attorney representing himself the third reason that the court cited in denying fees to attorneys representing themselves was that allowing fees would create the risk of attorneys with inactive practices pursuing cases just to make money not because they're actually interested in obtaining regular public records but there isn't a significant risk factor occurring in this type of situation where you have one nonprofit organization representing another one reason is because these are these are nonprofit organizations and federal law requires them to pursue their educational  charitable missions they can devote all their efforts to pursuing for you claims to make money now it's true of course that non profit organizations engage in fund raising in various ways but there's no reason to believe that they're at all likely to pursue foyle lawsuits as a way of making money for one tightly speculative because you don't know whether a foyer request will be the night and then you don't know whether  courts will rule that that denial was wrongful and if you bring a lawsuit you have out pocket costs you have to wait a long time and as this case illustrates the feel word might not be that large in the end anyway and  so you don't have that same kind of risk where big you can imagine if you had an attorney who has a completely inactive practice otherwise and is desperate for money has nothing else to do you could imagine that attorney just sitting down at a desk and cranking out for your request lawsuits and maybe he could do that full time and make enough money to get by but it's very difficult to imagine where you have to not profit organizations with nonprofit missions that would have to conspire together fees to be paid to one of the to organizations and if this were a realistic concern one would fit that it would have happened already that we have some example of this ever occur but the defendant hasn't identified any instance of this sort of thing ever occurring but just argues that well there is it theoretically could happen and so bash should be enough to deny fee's the possibility that you could have this kind of that ninety two hundred dollars plus the salary that they earn early the time they work in this case not a good the money would be paid to the organization not personally to the lawyers to be paid for right and it's not the only policy institute's concern but the liberty justice center doesn't have the money obviously it's just pays it over because that's that's the understanding between the two that in a word or term these fees would go to liberty justice or because the liberty justice center provided the representation you so it's not a concern so then how can we know what liberty justice souter's point do if they hit the street it's not a concern of your clients yes that's right but i mean we you just confused me what do you mean you are deliberately just saying i mean i am one of the attorneys employed by the liberty justice center so i know how the liberty justice center operates and what it would do if it were if it received counsel said well we don't have a situation here where there's an organization that's effectively that's essentially representing itself and so that makes it different from that's what uptown was about that's not what we have here and that's not correct there policy liberty justice souter i supposedly link that this case falls within the scope of of uptown that was a factual finding that the circuit court made and there that was what was that was said correct that the liberty justice center says well well technically we're a separate organization so we have the attorneys are employed by the liberty justice center because of that separate incorporation they are not employed by illinois policy and they use that to say that up towns a different case and what the circuit court is finding was that uptown doesn't turn on these these technicalities of you know which is literally the employing in substance there is no meaningful distinction between these entities and therefore just as an uptown there's a situation where an organization was essentially representing itself and there was evidence before the  there was evidence the fact that they share offices staff funding they identify themselves deliver just the center identifies itself on its website as the litigation cent i they literally employees or are they employees of liberty justice center versus are they employ is of no my policy i think is a technical distinction that the circuit court properly did not give weight to because it looked at the circumstances the factual matter to say you know no matter literally who may be called an employee when you look at all the evidence in the mix there's no meaningful distinction between these two organizations no going back to used attorneys who are really part of their one facet of the organization they get paid a salary and so they're essentially using with the equivalent of employee  attorneys and therefore do not incur legal fees and fall squarely with up with an uptown and humor which addresses that boy is purpose is to remove the burden of legal fees that are actually incurred which is not the case here when you don't have that type of independent relationship with outside counsel where there is an obligation triggered to pay fees here you have what is essentially pro bono representation by an organization just as there can be pro bono representation by an individual and that would not let me get so here you would wife because of this case the distinction in mind by how do we do this i believe is two concepts here and here in addition to issues of pro bono so there was no pro bono representation they were actually charged a fee and they incurred attorney's fees i think if they actually incurred attorneys fees that they then had to pay that would be a different situation well what do we have this in the record developed and it's their burden since they were seeking attorneys fees to put on evidence that would show yes there were fees here that were really incurred they've never done that or s different from the situation that we have here that even more fundamentally puts this case squarely within the ambit of hammer and uptown which is there's a situation here of pro se representation and we have to think of that distinctly from pro bono representation pro bono representation might be you know a legal aid society or a law firm  outside independent entity saying ok we will represent you on a pro bono basis i would say that because fees are not actually incurred there that is not even enough to trigger and a few words but we don't have to go there and that's a separate case here is a more fundamental problem and that is if there is pro se representation this is a case where because there's no meaningful distinction between liberty justice is to remove the obstacle of the few provision the purpose of a few provision is to remove the obstacle of legal fees there is no obstacle legal fees where there's  sentially pro se representation whether by an individual as was discussed in haim or or whether by an organization as was found in uptown and in that model where there is a pro se representation i think that that is arguably a harder question ultimately my position that even for pro bono representation which now i'm describing as a different situation than we have here illinois i know he does a couple just like cases about pro bono representation still allowing for fear ward those or other context they don't bind this court and we don't believe their ultimate lee persuasive here i would take a different view in even in the pro bono context but again this case is a really not persuasive here because we don't need to go to the proponent context we are we have a narrower issue here that involves south representation and this is about an organization that is essentially representing itself and there i think it's squarely falls within the authority of hammer and uptown that fees would not be recover in that situation because fees are not incurred this is about removing the burden of legal fees the other two purposes that the hammer court and if you have time court also noted and considered also come down on the to oneself is really the biggest point but the other two points or factors that were considered was the idea that there's a goal of  of objectivity that comes from self representation and i would say that that remains a concern in the context of an organization just as it does for an individual i don't think that concern is answered by some technical distinction between an individual and organizations and when you centrally have the client and the attorney boil down to facets of the same thing there is a question about independent judgment the third deterring abuse of fee generation and that's a risk that arises from the pro se nature of the representation when organization is essentially representing itself there is a risk that it can bring suit to engaging in fund raising and that comes from the risk comes from the pro se nature of the representation because if you're not  incurring fees then that's not an obstacle and you can you can bring suits with the aim of generating fees and counsel is that well that's sort of complex and why wouldn't we just ask people for money and that that may well be of an organization so here we have a situation where factually the court was on strong ground in finding that the case falls within the scope of the uptown case and the uptown case i think comes out very clearly  and on the point that fees have to excuse me that organization that's essentially representing itself is ineligible for fees so the result here pulls squarely within within the town and  i don't know if they have other lawyers if if i don't know what circumstances they might engage other attorneys to do other things they may engage outside counsel for some things they may not  apparent that the department's case hinges on the idea that illinois policy and the liberty justice center are defacto the same entity but the records simply cannot support back to include the record contains declarations sworn declarations from people of both entities and when they spell out the separation of these two organizations they're legally separate organizations they have separate board of directors boards of directors which have only one member in common and otherwise have other people on them illinois policy does not control liberty justice center it doesn't tell the liberty justice center how to run its litigation other than you know except in its role as passing as a client in cases like this participates otherwise illinois policy is not telling liberty justice center how to run its litigation there are there's no there's no control there and this state of illinois recognizes the separation for every other purpose so it's really bizarre for the department to insist that these two organizations are really one and it's a false distinction when all they have to support that are some brass carelessly worded statements on websites and that's it against specific descriptions of how these organizations operate by the people who are there running these organizations makes no sense to credit this actually speculation based on these these statements on websites over specific details about how these two organizations operate from which one could not conclude that they are one organization they may be there their allies they work together on things but they are there it is impossible to conclude that they're literally or the same wording is ation it makes no sense for the state of illinois to treat them as different organizations except under for you based on very very limited and also that to me the trial court didn't even make those an explicit finding on this it made sort of maybe a mixed finding of law in fact when he said they were sufficiently linked but it didn't even make specific findings regarding their relationship so it's impossible to  simply saying that uptown controls here because they're the same entity because they're not the same entity and so that means this case is really about the nine fees to the law firm that represented a client pro bono and to say that pro bono that you can't get fees for representing a client pro bono would be extraordinary possibly unprecedented nationwide it apparently unprecedented nationwide it would also be extraordinary device fees in this case because it required  court to contradict the plain language of a statute which just says that please get fees and it would also be extraordinary because it would disregard the legal separation between these two entities bed this state of illinois respect for every other