The recent amendment to Supreme Court Rule 756 was the kickoff for the ARDC’s foray into proactive management-based regulation, which we know will require lawyers without malpractice insurance to undergo an online self-assessment. As the contours of that process continue to be determined, the profession can and should examine existing methods the ARDC can employ […]
Tag: legal ethics
IL PMBR ASAP: Sea Change in Illinois Attorney Regulation
I wrote previously about the concept of proactive management-based regulation (“PMBR”), an attorney discipline concept that has been studied and implemented in some jurisdictions worldwide. The word was that Illinois was looking to be the first jurisdiction to adopt it in the U.S., and with our Supreme Court’s January 25 amendment to its Rule 756(e), that’s now happened. This […]
Funds of Other Lawyers: Separate to Divide
Recently, the American Bar Association promulgated Formal Opinion number 475, which addresses the obligations of lawyers who, having agreed to a fee split with another lawyer, come into possession of the settlement funds from which the fee will be drawn. Of course, we know what the lawyer’s obligations are to the client, and to third-party lienholders, with respect to the funds. […]
Attorney Regulation Reborn?
Illinois lawyers may have heard that the ARDC is moving toward a model of attorney regulation that includes proactive management-based regulation (“PMBR”). That model has been in place in New South Wales, Australia, for several years, and several North American jurisdictions are looking into adopting it in some form. The principle behind PMBR involves a shift from the traditionally reactive […]
ARDC Prosecutions: Hitting Dishonesty Hard
You may have received a copy of the ARDC’s Annual Report in your inbox recently, or perhaps you saw the summary that the ARDC also published. Both highlighted several aspects of the ARDC’s operation, including statistical information about the number and kind of investigations and prosecutions the agency has initiated. What can we learn from the raw numbers about what […]
Rule 1.6(e): Attacking Hacking
Taking information-security-related steps consistent with Rule 1.6(b)(7) might also help in complying with new Rule 1.16(e), which provides that “A lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client.” This may sound alarming: can a lawyer be disciplined for being a victim of […]
New Rule 1.6(b)(7): Detect and Resolve
A brief note about Rule 1.4 before we swing into the much-more-substantively-amended Rule 1.6: Comment 4 to Rule 1.4 has been amended to state not that “[c]lient telephone calls should be promptly returned or acknowledged,” but that “a lawyer should promptly respond to or acknowledge client communications.” So, yes, you have to answer emails and […]
New Rule 1.2(d): Spelling Things Out
< As new Comment 10 to Rule 1.2(d) explains, new Rule 1.2(d)(3) was adopted “to address the dilemma facing a lawyer in Illinois after the passage of the Illinois Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Pilot Program Act.” The new rule provides that a lawyer may “counsel or assist a client in conduct expressly permitted by […]
New Year, New Rules: 1.1
In October of last year, the Illinois Supreme Court entered an order amending several of the Rules of Professional Conduct, effective as of January 1, 2016. This post and several following posts will examine the changes to the Rules, and will offer thoughts about how lawyers can best understand the changes and incorporate them into […]
Brass Tacks Post: We Made Up. Now What?
One scenario that’s come up many times on both the prosecution and the defense sides of the ethics fence is the attorney-client make-up. The lawyer and client don’t communicate at all, or effectively, for a while; the client has a misimpression of the status of a matter; there is a noticeable, but harmless, period of […]
ethics forward. 