ISBA Mutual Chair Paula Holderman and President/CEO Jeff Strand congratulate the two surviving ISBA Mutual “founders,” Richard L. Thies, of Urbana, and Donald C. Schiller, of Chicago, on the 30th anniversary of the incorporation of the company.  The third “founder,” Jerome Mirza, died in 2007. All three were ISBA presidents. ISBA Mutual has grown to nearly 7,700 insured lawyers and $80 million in admitted assets.

Congratulations to Joseph Fisher, John Castaneda, Bradley Wilson, R. Samuel Postlewait, Marquita Trotter, Lori Levin, John O'Halloran, Melanie Fairman, John Cesario, Donald Nathan, James Hoey, Donna Henderson, Edward Burt, Janice Boback, Michael Schiffman, Kim Chanbonpin, Jacob Mihm, William Stanton, Michael Saken, Stephanie Lieberman, Cary Stein, Kenneth Michaels, Angela Riccio, William Gebis, and Michael Lucas for winning the 25 ISBA Mutual brief bags.

To show its appreciation in honor of Member Appreciation Month, ISBA Mutual gave away 25 goody bags, which includes a brief bag with supplies for when you are on the road. Members were invited to enter the drawing to win the following items:

• Power Bank to Charge Your Phone
• USB Drive to Save Files
• The Fundamentals of Loss Prevention Handbook
• Supplies: Notepad, Pen & Post-It Cube

The ISBA Mutual Insurance Company has partnered with the Illinois Bar Foundation to create the ISBA Mutual Giving Circle. This program allows ISBA Mutual policyholders to donate all or part of their dividend to support the mission of the IBF. For more information on joining the ISBA Mutual Giving Circle, contact the Illinois Bar Foundation at (312) 726-6072 or IBFinfo@isba.org.

"If you think that most malpractice claims come from administrative errors like the failure to file documents, think again," writes Karen Erger in the April Illinois Bar Journal.

"[Consistently, the ABA's quadrennial study of malpractice claims has] found that substantive errors are the largest category of errors alleged in legal malpractice claims, Erger writes in her IBJ Loss Prevention column, sponsored by the ISBA Mutual Insurance Company. "In the 2016 study, for the first time since the 1999 study, substantive errors account for more than half of alleged errors. And the single most common error is a substantive error, namely 'Failure to Know/Properly Apply the Law,' which accounts for 15.38 percent of claims in the 2016 study. This validates the risk management maxim that dabbling in unfamiliar areas of practice is risky business, and underscores the importance of concentrating your practice on a few areas of law so that you can stay competent and capable in those areas," she writes.

In fact, administrative errors have fallen "from 30.13 percent of claims in the 2011 study to 23.15 percent in the 2016 study," Erger writes. "The study's authors suggest that '[b]etter computer calendaring systems, e-filing, electronic record keeping, and multiple modes of communication with clients appear to have assisted attorneys in managing their law practice.'"