ARDC Annual Report shows lawyer investigations fell 5% in 2013
The Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC), the administrative agency that regulates licensed Illinois lawyers, has filed its year 2013 Annual Report with the Supreme Court of Illinois. The report was released to the public this morning when a copy was posted on the ARDC website: www.iardc.org.
A summary of the annual report entitled Highlights from the 2013 Annual Report is available below.
LAWYER POPULATION
The names of 91,083 Illinois lawyers appeared on the Master Roll of Attorneys as of October 31, 2013. That number does not include 2,164 attorneys who took their oath of office in late 2013. The overall lawyer population in Illinois saw an increase of 2% from 2012. The percentage of attorneys reporting a principal business address in Illinois, however, decreased last year and the number of practitioners reporting an address outside Illinois increased by 9.5% over 2012.
GRIEVANCES AND FORMAL DISCIPLINARY CHARGES
During 2013 the ARDC docketed 6,073 investigations, a 5% decrease from the prior year. More than half of grievances lodged against lawyers involved issues of poor attorney-client relations, typically neglect of a client matter (40% of all grievances) or failure to communicate with a client (18% of all grievances). Consistent with prior years, the top practice areas likely to attract a grievance include criminal law, domestic relations, real estate, and tort.
DISCIPLINARY SANCTIONS
Last year, the Supreme Court entered 149 sanctions against 148 lawyers (one lawyer was disciplined twice in 2013). The Court suspended an additional 13 lawyers on an emergency basis. In addition, six lawyers were reprimanded by either the Hearing Board or the Review Board. Cook County practitioners accounted for 44% of all disciplined lawyers. Approximately 25% of those disciplined in 2013 had one or more identified substance abuse or mental impairment issues. More than 65% of sanctioned lawyers were sole practitioners.
PUBLIC OUTREACH EFFORTS
The ARDC continues to be a national leader in providing professional responsibility training and ethics seminars to the profession and public. Commission personnel made over 270 presentations to bar associations, government agencies, law firms, law schools, public interest groups and other organizations in 2013, a 23% increase from the year before. The ARDC also produced several Minimum Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) accredited webcasts posted on the agency’s website. More than 11,000 Illinois lawyers watched those webcasts and earned up to seven hours of ethics and
professionalism MCLE credit at no cost.
CLIENT PROTECTION PROGRAM
The Supreme Court of Illinois established the Client Protection Program (CPP) in
1994 to reimburse clients who lose money due to the dishonest conduct of lawyers. In
2013, CPP approved 247 different claims against 38 lawyers and paid a record
$2,016,669. Beginning in 2014, the maximum available award available for claimants is
$100,000 per claim and $1,000,000 per lawyer.
ASSISTANCE TO THE BAR AND TO THE PUBLIC
In 2013, ARDC staff paralegals provided assistance to nearly 15,000 people seeking
help, including information about specific lawyers and ARDC procedures. In addition,
the ARDC Ethics Inquiry Program, a telephone inquiry resource, continued to serve
attorneys seeking help in resolving hypothetical, ethical dilemmas. In 2013, staff lawyers
responded to 4,613 ethics inquiries. Questions about a lawyer’s obligation to report the
misconduct of another attorney continue to be the most frequent area of inquiry posed to
the Program.
WEBSITE
The ARDC website continues to be a leading online resource for public information
concerning all aspects of lawyer regulation. The site attracts an average of 111,000 visits
each month and, during 2013, the total number of visits exceeded 1.3 million. Last year,
approximately 81% of all Illinois lawyers utilized the online registration program, a
significant increase over the 37% who used online registration in 2009, the first year that
the program was available. The agency regularly posts important ethics and
professionalism updates on the website and also sends e-mail alerts to members of the
Illinois bar regarding events that impact on a lawyer’s ethical duties.
PRO BONO LEGAL SERVICES AND CONTRIBUTIONS
A total of 30,751 Illinois lawyers reported that they had provided pro bono legal
services during calendar year 2013. These attorneys provided more than 2,098,472 hours worth of free legal services. Last year, 16,266 Illinois lawyers made $14,017,816 in
monetary contributions to pro bono legal services organizations. In addition, beginning
with the 2013 registration year, $95 of every lawyer’s annual registration fee was used to
fund legal services.