Chief Justice Rita B. Garman and the Illinois Supreme Court announced on Wednesday changes to a rule that will now require attorneys to register online each year.

Under Amended Supreme Court Rule 756, attorneys will also have to provide specific practice-related information to the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC).

The amendments to Rule 756, which governs the annual attorney registration process, will make Illinois one of at least seven states that will require the online submission of registration data by next year. At least a handful of states already mandate lawyers to do so.

ARDC Administrator Jerome Larkin said while 81 percent of Illinois' approximate 95,000 attorneys registered online this year, the rule's mandate for online registration will allow the ARDC to collect practice-related information from all lawyers, not just those who provide it voluntarily.

Historically, lawyers have been required to provide an address and telephone number for inclusion on their public listing on the Master Roll. With the amendments, an attorney will also have to furnish to the ARDC a residential address; the name of all other states in which he or she is licensed to practice law; the type of entity at which the attorney practices; the number of lawyers working there; the areas of law the lawyer primarily practices; and whether that organization has created a written succession plan.

"The disclosure of practice-related demographic information will allow us [the ARDC] to better understand lawyers' practices," Mr. Larkin said. "We'll be able to target our educational and regulatory resources to lawyers and assess whether those approaches are working."

All in all, a vast majority of Illinois attorneys are perceived by their colleagues as civil and professional, according to a 2014 survey of Illinois attorneys released today. At least 90 percent of survey respondents reported that most of their colleagues exhibit either civil/professional or very civil/professional behavior. 

However, more than 85 percent of respondents reported experiencing at least one instance of uncivil or unprofessional behavior within the past six months, with sarcastic or condescending attitudes, misrepresenting or stretching the facts, or negotiating in bad faith as the most reported unprofessional behavior. 

“Looking at these numbers, it’s clear that there is plenty of room for improvement,” said Judge Debra B. Walker, chair of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism. “That said, I am gratified to see that nine out of 10 attorneys who responded to our survey perceive their colleagues as exhibiting civil and professional behavior.” 

The 2014 Survey on Professionalism was designed by the Commission on Professionalism in collaboration with the National Center for Professional and Research Ethics at the University of Illinois (NCPRE). The Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission provided the Commission a randomized sample list of attorneys, proportionate by gender and location, within Illinois’ five Judicial Districts. The sample was divided by quartiles by years of admission to the bar. 

It's ISBA Member Appreciation Month, and ISBA Mutual appreciates your need to have fun while you make sure that you never miss a deadline.

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A low-tech tool for a high tech era? Why not? Click here to request yours. And accept our thanks for being a valued ISBA member.

ISBA Mutual shares the ISBA's commitment to ensuring members understand and follow legal best practices. That's why it sponsors the ISBA's Free Online CLE, the Solo & Small Firm Practice Institute Series, Fastcase research tools and so many other ISBA programs.

Our panel of leading appellate attorneys review Thursday's Illinois Supreme Court opinions in the civil cases Marks v. Vanderventer, McVey v. M.L.K. Enterprises, LLC, Turcios v. The DeBruler Company and Warren County Soil and Water Conservation Dist. v. Walters and the criminal cases People v. Allen, People v. Gaytan and People v. Kuehner.

CIVIL

Marks v. Vanderventer

By Karen Kies DeGrand, Donohue Brown Mathewson & Smyth, LLC

Here the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the trial court’s rulings that held unconstitutional a $10 surcharge collected by a county recorder of deeds as set forth in the original and amended versions of state legislation primarily aimed at funding the Rental Housing Support Program, which the General Assembly created to help local governments address the shortage in the state of affordable, decent rental housing. The circuit court certified a class of plaintiffs required to pay the fee for recording real estate-related documents and a class of defendants consisting of the county recorders of deeds throughout the state.

Congratulations to ISBA member – Adam Ansari – winner of the Ruby® Receptionists giveaway for 6 months of FREE live virtual receptionist service!

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ISBA Director of Legislative Affairs Jim Covington reviews legislation in Springfield of interest to ISBA members. This week he covers Service tax white paper, Property fraud alert system (House Bill 3672), The Parentage Act (House Bill 1531), Lifetime revocation issue (House Bill 1446) and Court security fee (Senate Bill 804). More information on each bill is available below the video.

Service tax white paper. The Taxpayers Federation of Illinois and the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability issued an issue brief on a service tax for Illinois at a press conference in Springfield yesterday. It recommends that the majority of professional services should be excluded from the Illinois sales tax base. Attorneys were not included in this proposed tax base. From the brief:

Q. I currently represent the buyer of a business. Can I represent the business’s seller in a wholly unrelated matter?

Under the Illinois Eavesdropping Act as it existed prior to March 2014, citizens could be -- and were -- prosecuted for recording the police and other public officials without their consent. The new law, passed in December and codified at 720 ILCS 5/14 et seq., makes it legal to do so in public settings without consent. But other provisions of the law make it easier for police to obtain permission to record private citizens, and the sum total is drawing mixed reviews from different parties for different reasons.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois (ACLU), which successfully challenged the old statute (American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois v. Alvarez, 679 F.3d 583 (7th Cir. 2012)), believes the rewritten law represents "a step forward" in that respect, says Adam Schwartz, senior staff counsel at the ACLU. "It limits the scope of the statute to just private conversations," he says. "If conversations are not private, there is no limit to recording; but if a conversation is private, you need all-party consent…. On the whole, the bill is drawing the line in the right place."

But the new act also provides a fast track for police to conduct surveillance on citizens' private communications if they have reason to believe those citizens will imminently commit one of a number of qualifying offenses, such as drug deals or sexual assaults, in the succeeding 24 hours. See 720 ILCS 5/14-3. Instead of requiring a warrant with approval of a judge, now police need only get the thumbs-up from their local state's attorney in a broader set of instances than in the past. Find out more in the June Illinois Bar Journal.

Associate circuit judges in Illinois outside Cook County have been evaluated in a poll of lawyers conducted by the Illinois State Bar Association. Results are available at www.isba.org/sites/default/files/judicialevaluations/2015%20Associate%20Reappointment.pdf

Associate judges are subject to reappointment every four years. The reappointment is accomplished through the casting of secret ballots by circuit court judges in their circuit. Successful candidates receive votes that tally three-fifths (60%) or greater in favor of their reappointment. Voting will be concluded prior to the beginning of the new associate judge terms. The new term of office for each reappointed associate judge will begin on July 1, 2015 and terminate on June 30, 2019.

Although the decision on associate judge reappointment is made by circuit judges, the ISBA is releasing these poll results to the public, because all judges are public officials and the opinions of their professional colleagues about their performance is of public interest.

ISBA attorneys in each judicial circuit (except Cook County) are mailed a ballot containing the names of every associate judge seeking reappointment in their circuit. Licensed attorneys who are not members of ISBA may request a ballot. Attorneys are asked to respond only if they have sufficient knowledge about the associate judge’s qualifications for judicial office to give a fair, informed opinion. Opinions expressed in the poll are of those attorneys who chose to respond and do not reflect the opinion of the ISBA or the opinion of all attorneys.

Asked and Answered

By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC

Q. I am the managing partner in a 12-attorney firm in Chicago. We have six partners and six associates. We are a boutique litigation firm. Three of our partners are in their mid to late 60s and should be thinking about retirement, but they seem to be in denial. How do we begin to address this issue?