If you want to watch the regulatory sausage being made - and even weigh in during the process - you need to be in with Flinn.

"The regulation process from a business attorney's perspective"
By James S. Peters
The Counselor - June 2016

If you think of Illinois law as a three-legged stool held up by cases, statutes, and regulations, the "regulations" leg seems to reside in the shadows. But just because it's less visible does not mean it's less important, especially in areas of practice like business law. Thankfully, the Illinois General Assembly takes some of the mystery out of rule and reg making with its Flinn Report.

The legislature's Joint Committee on Administrative Rules - JCAR - publishes the free Flinn Report each week on the General Assembly's website at http://www.ilga.gov/commission/jcar/flinn/flinn.asp. "its purpose is to inform and educate Illinois citizens about current rulemaking activity," writes James S. Peters in the June issue of The Counselor, newsletter of the ISBA's Business Advice and Financial Planning Section.

"The Flinn Report is a 4-6 page summary of rulemaking activity more fully set forth in the matching issue of the Illinois Register," he writes. (The Illinois Register, also free, is at https://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/index/register/home.html.) "Members of the public, such as attorneys representing businesses" can read the Flinn Report "to monitor regulations that may be important to their clients."

Peters notes that lawyers and others can not only view rule proposals but also comment on them according to a schedule of deadlines described at some length in his article. This gives lawyers and their clients the potential to "actively participate in (and perhaps influence) their own regulatory environment," Peters writes.

"A once-a-week (or even once-a-month) review of the Flinn Report…can provide the business law practitioner with a timely awareness of changing rules and regulations that can greatly impact their advice to clients," Peters writes.