Allow me to introduce...

Greetings! My name is Kathryn "Kat" Strobach and I am an attorney who practices civil and criminal law. Oh yes, I am also a devoted fan of bands such as Umphrey's McGee, Phish, Moe and STS9, just to name a VERY few! When I was sixteen I went to my first Umphrey's show. Since then I have been hooked. When I was in my second year of college I began taking classes on criminal justice, finding the subject far more interesting than some of the other classes I had to choose from. As soon as I became aware of the types of things law enforcement, lawfully and unlawfully, would do in Chicago when dealing with alleged law-breakers, I felt strongly that, if I could, I would like to find a way to be able to help people who ended up in these circumstances. As I continued in college I switched my major to pre-law. I now understood that even a defendant who may have technically been guilty still was entitled under the laws of Illinois and the United States Constitution to receive the fullest and fairest defense that could be afforded to that individual - causing the State to have to meet their burden of proof by truly proving their case "beyond a reasonable doubt."

Long story short, I ended up doing well in college and getting in to law school. I was late applying and intended to transfer back up to the Chicagoland area (where I grew up) but after living in Carbondale (southern Illinois) for a few months I fell in love with the atmosphere and ended up staying down there for two of my three summers in law school. After graduating and passing the bar exam (the test you need to pass in order to get your license to practice law) I moved to Springfield, Illinois along with some of my other friends from law school. While most of my friends in the area either work for the State's Attorney's Office or the Attorney General's Office, for various reasons I decided to operate as a solo practitioner (i.e., I mainly work alone) handling both criminal and civil cases. My practice experience prior to going solo included working as a student attorney and handling traffic and misdemeanor (as well as assisting with felonies) at two state's attorney's offices in Illinois and, following graduation, practicing workers compensation and personal injury law in the Peoria area. And...here I am now!

The main purpose of this blog will be for me to post various things I find online which relate to legal issues I believe would be pertinent and interesting to others in this scene. This will include, but not be limited to:

Illinois traffic laws
Illinois DUI law
Illinois drug laws
Illinois music festivals and live music shows
Out-of-state music festivals and live music shows
Legal issues surrounding music and the internet (e.g., online music piracy, intellectual property rights when you use SoundCloud, etc.)

I plan on posting here at least twice a week. Check back for new posts often!!

See you soon at a show near you :-)