Not that he's unprepared to face any judge or jury he might come up against; he goes through as many barrels of midnight oil as anyone on the Chicago bar. But sipping black coffee last week at a café across from the State of Illinois Building, where he works as special counsel for Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, Ellis looks exhausted. Best known for successfully prosecuting Gov. Rod Blagojevich in his Senate impeachment trial in early 2009, Ellis has spent the past few weeks working on legal briefs for theU.S. Supreme Court defending the state's redistricting plan. In May, he slogged through another complex case involving Medicaid financing.