Asked and Answered 

By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC

Q. I am the owner of a six-attorney litigation firm in the San Francisco Bay area. I am 60 years old and starting to consider gradually transferring my interest to associates in the firm. I have heard other attorneys mention that I should get some goodwill out of my practice. I would appreciate your thoughts.

A. Many law firm owners prefer to leave a legacy and keep the firm "within the family." They transition the firm to non-equity partners or associates in the firm at a discounted value, and buy-in as an incentive to stay on with the firm. 

The Illinois State Bar Association’s Lawyer Finder Service provides referrals to local lawyers Mondays through Fridays. The Service makes referrals in a number of areas of law. For the month of June 2018 there were more than 900 referrals given.

Here are the results for June 2018:

Leaders of an organization discuss a proposed policy at a meeting, but ultimately decide against it. Later, an incident occurs that may have been prevented had that policy been put in place and the organization is sued for dismissing the proposed policy. An article in July’s Illinois Bar Journal discusses the implications of Glisson v. Indiana Department of Corrections, which held that a municipality and private contractors may be liable for failing to adopt a policy that was considered, but not implemented. The Glisson case may have a profound impact on Section 1983 actions.

Chicago attorney Sandra Crawford discusses what collaborative law practice is, what kinds of cases the model is used to resolve, and what you should ask your lawyer if you're interested in using collaborative law practice to resolve your matter.

Asked and Answered 

By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC

Q. I am the owner of a real estate practice in Rockford. I have two offices – one in Rockford and the other in Chicago. I started my practice 20 years ago and have had my associate for the past five years. He works in the Chicago office and I work in the Rockford office. Prior to this associate I had two other associates that did not work out. My present associate has 14 years’ experience and worked in three other law firms. I am not happy with his performance. The legal assistant that works with him has advised me that he often does not come into the office until 10 a.m. and often leaves in the middle of the day. Clients have complained that he does not return phone calls or emails. His production is low – his annual billable hours have never been above 1,200 hours. I am paying him a salary of $98,000. I have had numerous conversations with him about these issues to no avail. Frankly, I am sick of it – I don’t trust him and things need to change. What should be my next step?

Orland Park Police Chief Timothy McCarthy received the ISBA Law Enforcement Award on July 2 during an Orland Park Village Board of Trustees meeting. ISBA President James McCluskey and ISBA President Elect David Sosin presented the award.

The ISBA Law Enforcement Award was created to recognize sworn law enforcement officers for conduct that promotes justice and to distinguish those individuals whose service to the public brings honor and respect to the entire criminal justice system. It recognizes those who excel in law enforcement.

Attorneys’ Title Guaranty Fund, Inc. (ATG) prevailed in its request for a stay of implementation against the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR). The judge granted ATG’s request for a stay of implementation of the revised DS-1 form until a hearing on the merits. He found particularly compelling ATG’s argument that attorneys should not be required to disclose their fees to third parties and that the IDFPR does not have the authority to regulate attorneys’ fees.

ATG believed the form, which is meant to disclose to consumers the fees related to title and settlement services, does not accomplish its intended objective, contains terms that are confusing to consumers, exceeds the regulator’s statutory authority, and shows serious bias against lawyer agents both in the disclosure form itself and in the instructions for completing it.

Computer algorithms guide and propel decisions we make every day, from the shows we choose on Netflix to the purchases we make on Amazon. Algorithms also operate behind the scenes of our professional lives. Susan Nevelow Mart, director of the University of Colorado Law School library, recently published a study (see https://bit.ly/2GJBmwW) that compared how six legal search platforms reacted to identical keyword queries. She and her team looked at the first 10 cases retrieved by Westlaw, Lexis Advance, Fastcase, Casetext, Ravel Law, and Google Scholar. She found, on average, that each platform listed four cases that did not appear within the first 10 results of any of the other platform’s top10 results.

The Illinois State Bar Association will launch a new online CLE platform the week of July 23.

The new platform will feature extended access to watch and re-watch all programs, including programs members have attended live, automated registration confirmation emails with program details and purchase verification, and continued access to member CLE accounts and to all CLE certificates. 

Members will still have access to more than 400 hours of on-demand programming, including 15 hours of free CLE per bar year. 

Some copies of the July edition of the Illinois Bar Journal were incorrectly stapled at the printers, resulting in pages being out of order. The ISBA apologizes for this inconvenience. The printers will resend the journal in its correct form to members beginning Thursday, July 5. Meanwhile, the Illinois Bar Journal is available online.