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Opinion 19-04 |
Communication With Client | Law Firms | Nonlawyer Assistants | Outsourcing Legal and Legal Support Services | Temporary Lawyers
An Illinois lawyer may “outsource” legal and legal support services relating to a matter provided the lawyer reasonably believes that the other lawyers’ and nonlawyers’ services will contribute to the competent and ethical representation of the client and reasonable measures are taken to protect client information and to avoid conflicts of interest. Disclosure to, and informed consent by, the client will ordinarily be required. Informed client consent is always required if the lawyer delegates or transfers complete or substantial responsibility for a matter to an unaffiliated lawyer.
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Opinion 13-10 |
Communication With Client
Under those circumstances identified in Supreme Court Rule 415(c), a lawyer may not provide a copy of discovery materials to a defendant client but nevertheless has an ethical obligation under RPC 1.4 to discuss the content of those materials with the client.
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Opinion 12-14 |
Advertising and Solicitation | Communication With Client | Law Firm Partnership and Employment Agreements | Law Firms
After departure, an associate who has left a law firm may contact clients of the firm with whom he had an attorney-client relationship. The Rules of Professional Conduct do not preclude him from informing such clients that he has departed and that they have the right to continue with the firm or transfer the file to him. Notice to the client is mandatory where a departing associate has been involved in representing the client in such degree or kind that the departure could reasonably affect either the client’s decisions regarding the representation or the means of accomplishing the client’s objectives. In such case, the associate must ensure that he or the firm (or both) timely inform the client of his departure. Whether such notice must issue before the associate’s departure will depend on the circumstances.
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Opinion 03-04 |
Communication With Client | Withdrawal from Representation
A law firm generally has no ethical obligation to file a lawsuit on behalf of a missing client to satisfy an impending statute of limitations. There may be exceptions, however, if the client specifically authorizes the filing of a lawsuit prior to the client’s disappearance and provides the law firm with sufficient information with which a complaint can reasonably be prepared and filed.
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Opinion 01-01 |
Client Files | Client Funds and Property | Communication With Client
When a former client is entitled to receive file material from a law firm, a law firm may not refuse a request to download onto disk such former client file materials stored on its computer system when such downloading can be accomplished easily and without disclosing the confidences of the firm's other clients.
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Opinion 98-04 |
Communication With Client | Confidentiality | Inadvertent Receipt and Disclosure of Confidential Materials
A lawyer who, without notice of the inadvertent transmission, receives and reviews an opposing party’s confidential materials through the error or inadvertence of opposing counsel, may use information in such materials. A lawyer who knows of an inadvertent transmission before confidential materials of an opposing party have been opened and reviewed should return such materials without examination. A lawyer has a duty to advise a client that confidential information was inadvertently transmitted to and read by opposing counsel.
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Opinion 96-11 |
Communication With Client | Impaired Lawyer
Lawyer, who represents clients transferred to him by another lawyer, owes no legal duty to the transferring lawyer or to the clients involved to inform the clients of the resumption of practice by the transferring lawyer who previously suspended his practice while temporarily physically incapacitated. Lawyer has an obligation to keep his clients reasonably informed about the status of their cases and must promptly comply with reasonable requests by the clients for such information, but this obligation does not create a legal or ethical duty on the part of lawyer to relay information regarding the referring attorney’s practice.
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Opinion 92-21 |
Communication With Client | Ex Parte Communications
A judge may confer with his/ her spouse's attorney, providing the judge has no official relationship to the spouse's legal proceeding, but only a personal one. This also means there is no impropriety in the actions of the spouse's attorney, in conferring with the client's spouse.
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Opinion 86-16 |
Communication With Client | Law Firm Partnership and Employment Agreements | Law Firms
A departing associate and the firm may both seek the consent of the associate's clients to continued representation. Fees earned during the associate's employment by the firm should be divided according to the employment agreement, but that agreement may not require sharing of fees earned subsequent to withdrawal.
