The Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC), the administrative agency that regulates licensed Illinois lawyers, has filed its year 2015 Annual Report with the Supreme Court of Illinois. The report was released to the public this morning when a copy was posted on the ARDC website: www.iardc.org.

A summary of the annual report available at Highlights of the 2015 Annual Report.

The ARDC annually evaluates the effectiveness of the disciplinary system. Complete and comprehensive statistics concerning the disciplinary caseload are submitted to the Illinois Supreme Court and are published in the Annual Report. Few professions account for their regulatory activity in such detail.

Nearly two dozen volunteer attorneys helped answer hundreds of phone calls, emails and Skype calls at the 35th Annual Ask A Lawyer Day on Saturday, April 30. Those calls helped members of the public resolve their legal issues or gave them the next steps toward resolving those issues. The endeavor also garnered much positive media coverage throughout Illinois.

On hand to answer calls in the Chicago office were (seated, left to right) Cynthis Koroll, Pamela Menaker and Alexas Collier; (standing, left to right) Daniell Saeddi, Kristi Vetri, Frank Soto and Joseph Kramer. Volunteers not pictured because they were still answering calls were Jeffrey Bunn, Joyce Wixson, Margherita Albarello, Alice Dolan and James Coogan. The ISBA would like to extend a hearty thank you to volunteers in the Chicago and Springfield offices.

Enhance your competence as an attorney by learning the intricacies of proper e-discovery procedures with this full-day seminar in Chicago on May 19, 2016. Learn how to avoid the consequences of expensive and improperly conducted e-discovery, particularly for your smaller cases. Because most discovery documents and information are now in electronic format – whether medical, financial or corporate records – it is essential to understand the complexities of e-discovery and to obtain accurate and complete documents. Attorneys with all levels of practice experience who attend this seminar will better understand: how technology is changing the way we practice; how technological incompetence can affect your practice; when you are allowed to search someone’s computer; best practices for document retention and destruction; how to obtain medical records; using e-discovery in employment law cases; how to use social media as evidence; how to obtain mobile device discovery; what metadata is and how to get it; which affordable e-discovery software you should be using in your practice; and much more!

CARPLS Legal Hotline in Chicago seeks volunteer hotline attorneys wanted to give advice to low-income clients in the areas of landlord/tenant, consumer debt, and family law.  Day and night shifts are available.  Malpractice insurance is provided.

Daily shifts: Mondays - Fridays 9 a.m.-1 p.m. or 1 p.m.-5 p.m. A minimum commitment of 1 shift per week over a 10-week session is requested.  

Evening shifts: Mondays or Wednesdays  5:30 p.m.–8 p.m. A minimum commitment of 36 hours over a one-year period is requested (about 1.5 shifts per month).  

Registration for our May volunteer class is now open. For more information, contact Leslie Wallin at 312/421-4427 or lwallin@carpls.org or go to http://www.carpls.org/getinvolved/pro-bono-opportunities/

ISBA Director of Legislative Affairs Jim Covington reviews legislation in Springfield of interest to ISBA members. This week he covers The Parentage Act of 2015 (House Bill 4447), Income shares and child support (House Bill 3982), New filing fee (Senate Bill 3162), IMDMA cleanup (House Bill 1190), Trust law (Senate Bill 2842), Personal guardian (House Bill 5924), Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (House Bill 4648) and Land Trust Beneficiary Rights Act (House Bill 4697). More information on each bill is available below the video.

Beginning next week Shopping Deals will be available to all registered members of TicketsatWork, with savings up to 70%.

3 Easy Ways to Share the NEW Shopping Deals with Your Employees:

1) Share this e-mail with your employees and make sure they are aware of the amazing offers available to them on TicketsatWork.

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3) Encourage everyone to become a member of TicketsatWork. Click here to sign up today.

On April 6, the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee passed SB 2842, which is now up for consideration in the state Senate. The bill seeks to overrule the second district's holding in In re Estate of Mendelson, 2015 IL App (2d) 150084 ("Mendelson I"), which held that real property could be conveyed into a trust without a deed.

The bill, which is sponsored by Sen. Ira Silverstein, would amend the Trusts and Trustees Act to require that all transfers of property into a trust be evidenced by a written conveyance and acceptance by the trustee. It would also require that any transfer of real property into a trust be recorded with the proper county recorder of deeds.

Find out what real estate practitioners and other subject-matter authorities are saying about the bill in the May Illinois Bar Journal.

Asked and Answered

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

Q. I am the managing partner of a 12-lawyer insurance defense firm in Oklahoma City. We have four partners and eight associates. While we have grown over the last five or six years by adding associates, our profitability has remained flat. We feel that we are not getting the billable hours that we should out of our associates. What are other firms like ours getting out of their associates in terms of billable hours?

Learn which alternative dispute resolution options are available in the three districts, how the programs are administered, and how to take advantage of each with this informative one-hour online seminar on May 18, 2016! Practitioners with basic to intermediate practice experience who handle (or have contemplated handling) civil litigation in any of the Illinois Federal District Courts who attend this live webcast will better understand: court-hosted mediation and how the local rules/procedures differ; special programs and procedures for pro se cases; Judge-hosted mediation and referrals to a panel mediator; opening statements; facilitative vs. evaluative mediation; pitfalls to avoid during mediation; knowing which documents are prepared on the spot, and which procedures follow the settlement, including statement of terms on the record and its impact on confidentiality; jurisdiction issues; and much more!