Hearsay

Mary Robinson has been to the ARDC what a picture window might be in the impregnable walls of the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

Visible, accessible, approachable – even helpful, friendly, courteous and kind. These attributes have been hallmarks for 15 years of the Robinson-era staff in turning an adversary perception into one of fairness and due process.

Chief Justice Bob Thomas got it right, observing that Robinson will leave the ARDC next month “with far more friends than when she arrived” (see story on page 5).

Justice Lloyd Karmeier concurred by lauding Robinson as indispensable in an effort to proffer the idea that policing the legal profession is one of the court's most important responsibilities, despite the feeling by a few that it may be the least appreciated.

Robinson entered this arena as a glass-ceiling buster with a resolute lawyer's breadth of understanding of the vicissitudes of family law, criminal defense and appellate practice.

Having served as an ARDC commissioner for three years before her appointment as administrator, Robinson was aware of flaws that needed fixing if the disciplinary function was to maintain the move out of isolation that had begun when proceedings became public in 1989.

The ARDC staff perceived “a huge bright line between them and the bar,” she told Will County lawyers on Jan. 25. And the process took way too long, partly because the authority for all decisions was centralized.

Things have changed, notably the acceleration of some 6,000 investigations each year. A lawyer who receives “The Letter,” detailing the substance of a complaint, can now expect to learn his or her fate more expediently.

If you are puzzled by an ethical dilemma that can't wait until a committee compiles all the relevant citations, contact the ARDC Ethics Inquiry Program for moral direction, and ask for a practical professional responsibility guide.

If you have screwed up a few pending matters and neglected to ‘fess up to the clients, chances are your sanction may be stayed while your practice management techniques are shaped up by the Professional Responsibility Institute.

If the cause of your misconduct is a treatable addiction to alcohol or drugs, probation may be an option while you persevere in a recovery program. The ARDC works with the Lawyers' Assistance Program in helping afflicted lawyers to continue their practices.

Although Robinson may not have been the sole creator of these beneficial innovations, her presence has been the beacon that illuminated their implementation.

Her parting collegial expression to the Will County Bar was that lawyers should take better care of themselves and seek balances to the rigors of the practice. “Don't be too busy trying to be so good at what you do,” she said.

Robinson calls it “an honor to have served this profession.” The legal community has been equally honored by her love of labor among its brightest and its humblest.

As Abraham Lincoln concluded the year-long process of admission to the Illinois bar 170 years ago, he probably did not need Rules of Professional Conduct to amplify what he had gleaned by candlelight from the Bible, Aesop's Fables and Pilgrim's Progress.

In February 1837, the second-term legislator had recently voted to move the state capital from Vandalia to Springfield, where he would soon join the law practice of John T. Stuart.

His experiences in life, law and politics led him 25 years later, as president, to observe in his second annual message to Congress that: “A nation may be said to consist of its territory, its people, and its laws. The territory is the only part which is of certain durability.”

Truly, a territory – the State of Illinois and its legal structure, for instance – has perpetuity, but my how its people, its laws and its rules do change over time. The legislature continues to tinker with volumes of statutes, while the Ten Commandments have endured almost since biblical creation.

The latest political foray into principles that people should have learned before puberty is the new law that requires a political candidate to reveal whether his or her name has been altered in the previous three years for any reason other than marriage, divorce or adoption.

Pundits gleefully cited recent Cook County judicial candidates who affected nominal Irishness for the purpose of further confusing an electorate already perplexed by a proliferation of ballot unknowns.

The good news may be that the “formerly known as” law demonstrates the need of more meritorious means than politics and heritage for improving the quality of the bench. Honest Abe would approve.