Abraham Lincoln was counsel of record in approximately 175 cases before Illinois' highest court. The history website of the Illinois Supreme Court lists all of these cases that have official citations, beginning with
Scammin vs Wine, 3 Ill. 456 (1840), through to
State of Illinois v. Illinois Central Railroad Company, 27 Ill. 64 (1861).[1]
People ex rel. Stevenson v. Higgins, 15 Ill. 110 (1853), concerning trustees of a hospital. Lincoln represented Higgins. He lost on the point of who, precisely, was empowered by common law to exercise the right of removal. Lincoln argued that it should only be the legislature, the governor, or the Supreme Court, but not the hospital's trustees, but the court held that the trustees too could exercise the power of amotion.[2]
^The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy P. Basler, editor, Rutgers; 1953, II, 197-98. Lincoln's name does not, however, appear in the printed report. See also, Ewan McGaughey, Participation in Corporate Governance (2014)
ch 4(3), 96.