Add the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago to the list of parties seeking billions from the banks that sold mortgage-backed securities. On Friday, the Home Loan Bank’s lawyers at Keller Rohrback filed a complaint in Illinois state court against dozens of financial institutions, including the largest banks in the world, over the sale of $3.3 billion in private label mortgage-backed securities, a type of residential mortgage-backed security issued by private entities.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals created a circuit split by ruling that Medicare should reimburse the University of Chicago Medical Center for medical residents’ research work not related to Medicare patients. By upholding a Northern District of Illinois ruling that the medical center is eligible for Medicare reimbursements for “indirect medical education” expenses, such as research, this ruling stands in opposition to a 1st Circuit 2008 holding

U.S. District Judge Jose Linares in New Jersey has allowed an arbitration to proceed between Lakin Chapman of Wood River, Ill., and Freed & Weiss of Chicago over a portion of $5.775 million in legal fees approved as part of a class action settlement. The suit challenged the imposition of flat-rate, early-termination fees on cell-phone contracts.

The third trial of Harold Turner, the Internet-radio host charged with threatening to kill three Chicago appeals court judges, is expected to go to the jury as early as this afternoon. With only one witness to go, the two-day trial has been markedly more civil than Turner’s earlier trials, in which his defense attorneys attempted to debate fine points of constitutional law with the three allegedly threatened judges, who each took the stand as witnesses for the prosecution

The cloud of doom and gloom has dissipated over Chicago’s legal market. With the economy picking up and law firms needing fresh bodies to replace the thousands laid off last year, 2010 has witnessed an increase in associate hiring