The Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC), the administrative agency that regulates licensed Illinois lawyers, has filed its year 2022 Annual Report with the Supreme Court of Illinois. The report will be released to the public on May 1 when a copy is posted on the ARDC website. 

A summary of the Annual Report entitled Highlights of the 2022 Annual Reportis also available. 

The ARDC was created in 1973 and is now in its 50th year of assisting the Supreme Court in regulating the legal profession in Illinois. Since 1973, the number of lawyers in Illinois has grown from approximately 26,500 to over 95,000. The ARDC has also evolved, broadening its focus beyond registration and discipline to providing lawyers with a number of remedial and educational services, and other resources, so that they may practice law ethically and effectively in these changing times. The Annual Report’s appendix includes a 50th Year Anniversary Timeline noting the important milestones and developments in Illinois lawyer regulation. 

Additionally, 2023 will mark the final year of ARDC Administrator Jerome Larkin’s stewardship of the agency. Mr. Larkin is retiring at the end of this year, having served as Administrator since 2007 and having worked at the ARDC for 45 years. His forward-thinking leadership, together with that of the Supreme Court, has been one of the reasons the agency is at the forefront of lawyer regulation in the nation. The Annual Report highlights the ARDC’s many accomplishments during his tenure as Administrator.   

The Annual Report further provides complete and comprehensive statistics concerning the ARDC’s disciplinary caseload, financial health, and progress on various initiatives. Few professions account for their regulatory activity in such detail.  

On the lawyer-discipline front, there were 4,359 requests for investigation received by the ARDC concerning 3,257 lawyers in 2022. The ARDC filed 52 formal disciplinary complaints before the ARDC’s Hearing Board, while 16 disciplinary and regulatory proceedings were filed directly in the Illinois Supreme Court. The Court disbarred 12 lawyers in 2022, placed 48 lawyers on suspension (with or without a term of probation), and censured three lawyers.  

The 2022 Annual Report includes a summary of the ARDC’s progress on its Education Initiative. In 2022, the ARDC’s website contained 36 on-demand, recorded webcasts providing 25.25 free hours of professional responsibility Minimum Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) credit. The ARDC issued 87,438 certificates of MCLE completion to Illinois lawyers in 2022, totaling 65,038 hours of professional responsibility MCLE credit earned. Additionally, ARDC staff lawyers gave 113 presentations to bar associations and law-related organizations during 2022 and provided research assistance and guidance regarding ethical issues in 2,540 calls to its Ethics Inquiry Program. 

In its Annual Report, the ARDC also accounts to the Supreme Court for money received and spent. No tax money is used to fund the agency. All operating funds are taken from an annual registration fee paid by Illinois attorneys. By Supreme Court rule, lawyers pay an annual fee of $385. Of that amount, $95 is remitted to the Lawyers Trust Fund to fund legal services for low-income persons; $25 funds the ARDC Client Protection Program to indemnify victims of lawyer misconduct; $25 is submitted to the Supreme Court’s Commission on Professionalism to help that entity’s efforts to promote civility and inclusion in the legal profession; $20 is sent to the Lawyers’ Assistance Program, an organization that helps lawyers, judges, law students, and their families with alcohol abuse, drug dependency, or mental health problems; $10 is remitted to the Supreme Court’s Commission on Access to Justice to facilitate access to civil courts and administrative agencies for low-income and vulnerable Illinoisans; and the balance of the registration fee, $210, is used by the ARDC to pay for lawyer regulation. The ARDC’s Client Protection Program paid out $1,098,821 on 53 claims in 2022.   

There are seven ARDC Commissioners – four members of the Illinois Bar and three non-lawyers, all appointed by the Supreme Court. The ARDC Chair is Timothy L. Bertschy of Dunlap. The Vice Chair is John H. Simpson of Chicago. The Commissioners, who receive no compensation for their services, create ARDC policies, establish an operating budget, appoint members of the Inquiry and Hearing Boards, and manage the Client Protection Program. Subject to the approval of the Supreme Court, the Commissioners appoint the ARDC’s chief executive and regulatory officer, the Administrator. As noted, the Administrator is Jerome Larkin.  

There are two ARDC offices: One Prudential Plaza in Chicago and 3161 White Oaks Drive in Springfield.