The Illinois State Bar Association and the Illinois Judges Association are pleased to invite you to celebrate the profession and consider issues of mutual interest to the bench and bar during our annual Midyear Meeting.
December 10-12, 2015
The Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers
301 East North Water Street, Chicago, Illinois
This year's highlights include:
Family Law attorney Morris Lane Harvey discusses post-trial motions in dissolution cases.
The Assembly meeting agenda has been posted at www.isba.org/leadership/assembly/minutes. This page is password protected and available only to ISBA members. The Assembly will next meet at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 12 during the Joint Midyear Meeting at the Sheraton Chicago.
Changes to the Rules of Professional Conduct adopted this fall by the Illinois Supreme Court reflect the growing importance of technology and how attorneys use it in their practices.
The changes address outsourcing attorney work, technology and attorney competence, lead generation services, communications with potential clients, and disclosure of information to prevent conflicts of interest, among other issues. The court also adopted rules allowing lawyers to advise clients about using, growing, and selling medical cannabis even though it is a federally controlled substance (see LawPulse, December 2014 Illinois Bar Journal) and requiring prosecutors to reveal post-conviction exculpatory evidence (see LawPulse, September 2015 Journal). The majority of the changes are effective January 1. They are posted on the supreme court website.
For example, comment 8 to Rule 1.1, which addresses attorney competence, now says that attorneys must remain abreast of "changes in…relevant technology," including their risks and benefits. Charles J. Northrup, ISBA general counsel, believes that staying up to date on the technology used in your practice is the "minimum threshold." But given that the rule speaks in terms of "relevant technology," it might extend further. Find out more in the December Illinois Bar Journal.
