By David Anderson

Proposed amendments to Illinois Rules on Admission and Professional Conduct, designed to expand the regulation of licensure of foreign attorneys in Illinois, will be considered by the ISBA Assembly during its Dec. 10 meeting at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel.

The amendments were drafted by the ISBA Special Committee on the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) after more than a year of study.

The Board of Governors voted Nov. 4 to support adoption of the amendments after a presentation by special committee chair George E. Marifian of Belleville and member Carole B. Silver of the Northwestern University School of Law.

“What the special committee proposes will not infringe on the practices of Illinois attorneys,” Marifian told the board. “We believe that GATS is an opportunity for Illinois lawyers to export their services, and to grow the Illinois economy.”

GATS is a 1994 agreement to which the United States is a party through its membership in the World Trade Organization. It is the only international agreement that covers trade in services, including legal services.

The GATS agreement encourages nations to liberalize trade in the services sectors, and to increase transparency of the rules governing each sector.

The proposed amendments allow greater transparency, as well as enabling Illinois to become a more significant competitor in the international legal community.

New York state is considered to be the leader in the global legal community because of provisions within its rules for admission of foreign legal consultants and for foreign-educated attorneys to sit for the bar exam.

Large businesses abound in Chicago and other cities throughout Illinois, many of them engaging in international business transactions.

The GATS committee says this fact, coupled with Illinois having the fourth largest U.S. attorney population, presents an opportunity to become more of a competitor in the international legal community through adoption of the amended rules.