According to sources close to the litigation, the Illinois ARDC, Lea S. Gutierrez, and Tammy Evans face federal sanctions should they refuse to drop forced time travel requirements on the Plaintiffs in a case involving ALABnews‘ Publisher Judiciocracy LLC. The Northern District of Illinois case is captioned:
Children of the Court and Judiciocracy LLC v. Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, Lea S. Gutierrez, and Tammy Evans.
In an email obtained by ALABnews‘ staff, Puerto Rico-based civil rights litigator, Antonio Valiente offered the Defendants 21 days to remove their sanctionable behavior:
“If you agree to strike the language related to the disciplinary complaint in the 12(b)(6) portion of your Motion, we will not file for sanctions.”
The ARDC’s offending language demands that the Plaintffs’ March 30, 2025 lawsuit fails for not addressing the allegations in the ARDC’s own disciplinary complaint against the crusading court reform CEO, Edward “Coach” Weinhaus. Plaintiffs in the action and others have previously called Coach “the nation’s most aggressive judicial reformer.” Coach runs both Plaintiffs, but according to affidavits, the lawsuit fighting back against the disciplinary bodies for interfering with their free speech was instituted absent his involvement.
Rather than critique the ARDC, Coach recently encouraged the Defendants in a public filing for their work as it feeds ALABnews’ hunger for disciplinary news stories – “the more the merrier.”
Mr. Valiente’s proposed motion for sanctions against the ARDC pointed out an obvious issue from what he dubbed, “the state’s ‘foremost authority’ on attorney discipline.” The disciplinary complaint that the ARDC demands that the Plaintiffs use was filed after the lawsuit in federal court. “Plaintiffs do judicial reform, not time travel.”
Mr. Valiente cited to a 2003 7th Circuit Court of Appeals case supporting requirements of “time travel” deserving sanctions review in the case Nisenbaum v. Milwaukee County.
This isn’t the only place the ARDC risks sanctions in its pursuit to protect judges from criticism it deems unsavory. Experienced attorney-defender Adrian Vuckovich filed his own shot-across-the-bow last week while defending Coach:
“[The ARDC] is seeking to stifle criticism of judges for [an] improper purpose [in a] private efforts to stifle criticism of judges.”
Vuckovich may use the ARDC’s own administrative process to find Illinois Supreme Court Rule 137 sanctions against the ARDC should his allegations be found true. Vuckovich named all the parties in federal court as witnesses in a filing Friday June 20.
Coach refused any comment about the pending litigation in Illinois or federal court, ironicially, citing ethical rules.
He confirmed that he is so excited to engage in the ARDC’s disciplinary process that he self-reported the exact same Illinois charges to Missouri and California where he is also licensed. “Unfortunately, I don’t have charging decisions from the other states yet. It’s possible that discussing judges is treated differently there and they won’t be as brave as the ARDC in charging me.” Coach stated that the California Chief Trial Counsel’s office called him to confirm that he wanted them to bring the same charges.
Federal court sanctions – absent removal of the language requiring ‘time travel’ – might not only diminish the ARDC but affect multiple ARDC attorneys (Defendants Evans, and Gutierrez plus those ARDC attorneys representing them in federal court). Case number 1:25-cv-03387-AMP-GAF is before the Honorable April M. Perry and involves the Plaintiffs’ ability to have a lawyer help them improve the judicial system.
On May 28, 2025, Judge Perry, after originally siding with the Defendants, stated “I want to make it clear that I am persuadable.”
Publisher’s Note: As a point of clarification, Judge Perry was not stating that she can be persuaded that Judiciocracy LLC nor any of its publications has the capacity for time travel and Judiciocracy does not make such claim. This article was made to be published by a non-attorney.
