ARDC Releases 2024 Annual Report
The Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC), the administrative agency that regulates Illinois lawyers, has filed its year 2024 Annual Report with the Supreme Court of Illinois. The report was released to the public on Wednesday, April 23, 2025, on the ARDC website.
View the summary of the Annual Report entitled Highlights of the 2024 Annual Report.
The Annual Report provides complete and comprehensive statistics concerning the ARDC’s registration activities, disciplinary caseload, financial condition, and progress on various initiatives. Few professions account for their regulatory activity in such detail.
The year 2024 marked the first full year of ARDC Administrator Lea S. Gutierrez’ stewardship of the agency. The Annual Report contains a message from Ms. Gutierrez noting the ARDC’s new mission statement and a five-year strategic plan designed to balance lawyer discipline with proactive support for Illinois lawyers through education and support services, strengthening registration and regulation, and leveraging technology and innovation.
The 2024 Master Roll of Attorneys in Illinois had a total of 96,821 lawyers, reflecting a 0.4% increase over the previous year. There were 1,949 new-admittee lawyers added to the roll in 2023, the highest number since 2015, and 1,673 Illinois lawyers transitioned to Retired status. While there are still more male lawyers than women lawyers in Illinois, for the second year in a row, women lawyers in practice for less than five years outnumbered male lawyers in practice for less than five years, this year by 51.5% to 48.1%.
On the lawyer-discipline front, there were 4,706 requests for investigation received by the ARDC concerning 3,352 lawyers in 2024. The ARDC filed 46 formal disciplinary complaints before the ARDC’s Hearing Board and 33 disciplinary and regulatory proceedings directly in the Illinois Supreme Court. The Court disbarred 17 lawyers in 2024, placed 36 lawyers on suspension (with or without a term of probation), censured five lawyers, and reprimanded two.
The 2024 Annual Report includes a summary of the ARDC’s progress on its Education Initiative. In 2024, the ARDC’s website contained 45 on-demand, recorded webcasts providing 32 free hours of professional responsibility Minimum Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) credit. The ARDC issued 94,233 certificates of MCLE completion to Illinois lawyers in 2024, totaling 74,344.5 hours of professional responsibility MCLE credit earned. Additionally, ARDC staff lawyers gave 140 presentations to bar associations and law-related organizations during 2024 and provided research assistance and guidance regarding ethical issues in 2,211 calls to its Ethics Inquiry Program.
In its Annual Report, the ARDC also accounts to the Supreme Court for money received and spent. No tax money is used to fund the agency. All operating funds are taken from an annual registration fee paid by Illinois attorneys. By Supreme Court rule, lawyers pay an annual fee of $385. Of that amount, $95 is remitted to the Lawyers Trust Fund to fund legal services for low-income persons; $25 funds the ARDC Client Protection Program to indemnify victims of lawyer misconduct; $25 is submitted to the Supreme Court’s Commission on Professionalism to help that entity’s efforts to promote civility and inclusion in the legal profession; $20 is sent to the Lawyers’ Assistance Program, an organization that helps lawyers, judges, law students, and their families with mental health issues; $10 is remitted to the Supreme Court’s Commission on Access to Justice to facilitate access to civil courts and administrative agencies for low-income and vulnerable Illinoisans; and the balance of the registration fee, $210, is used by the ARDC to pay for lawyer regulation. The ARDC’s Client Protection Program, which reimburses clients for losses caused by disciplined lawyers’ dishonest conduct or by unearned and unrefunded fees paid to lawyers who later died, paid out $1,442,273 on 65 claims in 2024.
There are seven ARDC Commissioners – four members of the Illinois Bar and three nonlawyers, all appointed by the Supreme Court. The ARDC Chair is John H. Simpson of Chicago. The Vice Chair is J. Nelson Wood of Mt. Vernon. The Commissioners, who receive no compensation for their services, create ARDC policies, establish an operating budget, appoint members of the Inquiry and Hearing Boards, and manage the Client Protection Program. Subject to the approval of, and appointment by, the Supreme Court, the Commissioners recommend the ARDC’s chief executive and regulatory officer, the Administrator. As noted, the Administrator is Lea S. Gutierrez.
There are two ARDC offices: One Prudential Plaza in Chicago and 3161 White Oaks Drive in Springfield.