I had the honor of serving on the Chicago Bar Association/Chicago Bar Foundation’s Task Force on the Sustainable Practice of Law & Innovation since October, 2019. We undertook a review of key rules affecting the rules governing the practice of law in the State of Illinois. I served on the Plain Language & Ethics committee, which reviewed all other committee recommendations and tried our best to make the rules understandable.
The Task Force has issued a final report and seeks public input from lawyers in Illinois.
The problem the Task Force seeks to address in a nutshell is an untenable failure in the legal market. At the same time, we have more lawyers practicing than ever before, more people than ever before are going without legal help. Dozens of lawyers and legal professionals from diverse backgrounds across the legal community in Illinois and beyond have worked diligently over the past nine months to tackle these issues and develop a comprehensive series of recommendations for regulatory reform.
The final Task Force report, which numbers 116 pages, recommends changes to modernize the Rules of Professional Conduct and related Supreme Court Rules, organized by three overarching Task Force goals:
• Helping lawyers connect to more potential clients and offer more affordable and accessible solutions;
• Helping people to recognize they have a legal problem and where they can turn for affordable and reliable legal help, and
• Spurring more innovation in the profession and delivery of services.
As Justice Anne Mason (retired), co-chair of the Task Force, said, "Disruption and change are happening all around us and we have a choice as to how we can respond. We can watch as outside forces shape the future of our profession or, instead, we can take a lead role in shaping that change for the good of our profession and the public we serve. The status quo is unacceptable and our best course is to take charge of our profession's future."
The CBA/CBF are the first voluntary bar groups in the country to take on this challenge and deliver a report and recommendations for public comment.
“It is imperative that we identify and embrace legal innovations that have the potential to improve how Illinois lawyers practice law and their ability to better serve their clients and the public,” said Task Force co-chair E. Lynn Grayson, of Nijman & Franzetti LLP.
The committees of the Task Force reviewed a variety of rules and made recommended amendments or the elimination of the rule entirely. For example, the Task Force intentionally stopped short of proposing a full repeal of Rule 5.4’s restrictions on the ownership of law firms, but recommends later in this report that the Supreme Court evaluate whether that restriction should be relaxed or lifted to promote more innovation in the profession.
In addition, the Task Force reviewed and recommended amendments to rules 7.1 through 7.4. Rule 1.2, Rule 5.5, and added a recommended comment to Rule 1.5 on Permissible Fee Agreements and creation of a Supreme Court Rule on Fee Petitions. We recommend deleting rules 7.2 and 7.4 in their entirety.
Overall, the Task Force tried to find ways to make it easier for lawyers to conduct business development, practice law and market their services. In addition, the Task Force made recommendation to make it easier for those seeking legal services to have access to them and understand how law firms work.
The Task Force built off the work of other task forces in Arizona, California and Utah, taking a multi-tiered approach to its report and recommendations. They run the gamut from high tech - allowing lawyers to harness the power of modern technology to deliver solutions to legal problems more efficiently and less expensively - to low tech - establishing community-based, in-person sources of reliable formation regarding legal problems.
I would encourage all practicing attorneys, as well as citizens interested in justice, to learn more about the report and recommendations on the Task Force page on the CBF website (chicagobarfoundation.org), where they can find a copy of the full report, a list of the Task Force members, and links to “pocket chats”—brief video segments discussing each of the Task Force recommendations.
You also can read the report and submit feedback on any of the recommendations online. People can sign up to give brief testimony at one of the upcoming CBF Zoom town halls.
At the conclusion of the public comment process, the Task Force will review the feedback and refine its recommendations as necessary, get final approval from the CBA and CBF boards, and then submit our final report and recommendations to the Illinois Supreme Court.
I strongly recommend lawyers read the Task Force report and make comments on it for consideration because it may well change the way you practice law in the future.