Practice News

May an Illinois lawyer list his or her "specialties" on LinkedIn without running afoul of Illinois RPC 7.4, which forbids use of the "s" word? The LinkedIn template includes a space for users to fill in their "Specialties," and Illinois lawyers in the LinkedIn network have been wondering. According to Helen Gunnarsson in the September IBJ, ARDC Chief Legal Counsel James Grogan says lawyers can remove the risk of an RPC 7.4 violation by "prefac[ing] their listing of practice areas with a statement drawing language from the rule, along the lines of 'The Supreme Court of Illinois does not recognize certifications of specialties in the practice of law, and I do not hold myself out as a specialist. However, I concentrate my practice in the following areas....'" Read about this and more in Helen's LawPulse item, Social media and legal ethics.

Public Act 96-707 (Haine, D-Alton; Turner, D-Chicago) provides for a hearing to be held when a juvenile with a first-offense misdemeanor turns 18 or upon completion of the sentence, whichever comes later. If local prosecutors do not file objections, expungement will be automatic. The limited objections that may be considered by a judge include the following: (1) if the arrest was for a homicide, an offense involving a deadly weapon, a sex offense, or aggravated domestic battery; (2) if the offense for which the minor was arrested is still under active investigation; or (3) if the minor is a potential witness in an upcoming court proceeding. Public Act 96-707 also prohibits the transfer of confidential juvenile arrest records from the State police to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to prevent the unnecessary release of confidential juvenile data. Effective January 1, 2010.

Currently, the Federal Government and most states do not tax income of partnerships, “S” corporations, and limited liability companies (LLCs) that elect to be treated as partnerships. Instead, the income is taxed after it flows through to individual partners or shareholders. Illinois has followed this practice for regular income tax purposes but does tax these entities with a “personal-property replacement-income tax.” Illinois has allowed “S” and “C” corporations to deduct compensation paid to owners, but partnerships are not allowed to do so. To treat partnerships in the same way as S and C corporations, Illinois has allowed partnerships to deduct a portion of their distributable income that represented reasonable compensation. Public Act 96-45 changes this tax policy effective for tax years ending Dec. 31, 2009 for the personal-property replacement-income tax. It limits partnerships’ deduction to “guaranteed payments” instead of “reasonable compensation.” The difficulty is guaranteed payments for federal purposes is limited to payments made regardless of the profitability of the partnership. This would generally limit the deduction to income partners because equity partners’ income is based on their share of distributable income of the partnership. Public Act 96-45 will affect personal-service partnerships such as law firms, accounting firms, private equity, and investment fund managers because almost all of the distributable income to the equity partners represents the personal services of the partners. Since these distributions cannot be categorized as guaranteed payments, the partnerships may have significant taxable income for Illinois replacement tax purposes.

In the latest ISBA Corporate Lawyer, Frank Grenard nicely summarizes the much ballyhooed beefing-up of the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. The changes take effect January 1. As Frank notes, excuses for noncompliance will be harder to come by. "[T]he Act provides that irrespective of added cost to comply and technological advances, public records 'shall' be made available upon request except when denial of access furthers the public policy underlying 'a specific exception.'” And the new process will be more requester friendly, he reports. "The Act will prohibit public agencies from requiring the use of individualized FOIA forms, nor can the public agency require the requester to disclose the purpose for the request." Read all about these and other elements of the new FOIA law.