Asked and Answered

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

Q. I am a partner in a six-attorney estate planning firm in Dallas, Texas. For many years, our primary marketing activity has been seminars that we put on for clients, prospective clients, and referral sources. These seminars have been put on solely by our firm, or in partnership with other organizations such as nursing homes, hospitals, etc. These seminars have been free of charge. We provide a lot of value at these seminars and have been wondering whether we should charge a fee. We would appreciate your thoughts.

Last Thursday, Nov. 9, 1,335 new attorneys were admitted to practice law in Illinois after taking the attorney's oath at five separate ceremonies across the state, bringing the total number of licensed attorneys in Illinois to approximately 98,000. Illinois Supreme Court and Illinois Appellate Court justices presided over the ceremonies.

ISBA staff members were in attendance at all five ceremonies to welcome the state's newest attorneys to the profession, take photos, and talk about the benefits of ISBA membership, which is free for one year for new admittees. Member benefits can be activated by filling out the New Admittee Membership Form. 

The photo galleries of highlights from the ceremonies are listed below:

1st District Admission Ceremony, November 2017

2nd District Admission Ceremony, November 2017

3rd District Admission Ceremony, November 2017

4th District Admission Ceremony, November 2017

A postnuptial agreement is "an important and effective tool in Illinois and should not be forgotten by practitioners," writes Chicago lawyers Joshua S. Singewald and Kellie Rose Bylica in the September ISBA Family Law Section newsletter.

As in the case of any contract, a postnup must be entered into voluntarily by the parties, and the familiar contract-law protections against coercion and mistake apply, Singewald and Bylica note. And Illinois law "require[s] a full disclosure of each party's assets and liabilities for every postnuptial agreement," allowing each "to make an informed decision."

So when would a married couple use one? "[I]f one spouse intends to start a business during the marriage, the business-owning spouse may want to protect his or her business in the event of divorce," Singewald and Bylica write. "Similarly…a spouse [who] makes a substantial non-marital contribution to a marital asset," such as making the down payment on a house, might want to assure reimbursement, they write. Postnups also enable the parties to allocate debt, deal with bequests to children of previous marriages, and even "[r]evise a prenuptial agreement based on current/changed circumstances."

Learn more about postnups in the September Family Law newsletter.

The ISBA Diversity Leadership Council will be hosting the "Count Me In" reception in conjunction with the 2017 Midyear Meeting. Join us immediately after our CLE program, Diversity and Inclusion in the Practice of Law, for this complimentary reception on Friday, Dec. 8 from 4:30 - 6:30 p.m. at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago to connect with old friends and new acquaintances, and celebrate the diversity in the legal profession. 

Register for the reception online today and be part of the Movement for Inclusion.

A special thank you to our premier sponsor, Lewis Rice, and our partner sponsor, Avery | Kill, LLC. 

Attention ISBA email discussion-group members: As many of you know, we’re migrating from our old listserver software to a new, more powerful online community called ISBA Central. The old lists are now closed, and the following ISBA Central communities are open for business:

• ISBA Main Community
• Mentor- Mentee
• Ethics
• Café
• Senior Lawyers
• Litigation
• Transactional
• Criminal-DUI-Traffic

Other groups will launch over the next few weeks. For more about the transition, visit http://central.isba.org (be sure to check the Help/FAQ page).