ISBA Ethics Opinions by Year

Under Rule 1.5(e), a law firm may agree to share fees with a retired partner as part of a retirement agreement. However, Rules 1.5(e) and 5.6 bar the firm from requiring that a lawyer or the lawyer’s new firm continue to share fees with the retired partner after the lawyer has left the firm.

Under Rule 4.2, a lawyer, even one who is acting pro se, is not permitted to have contact with a party who is represented in one aspect of a case and unrepresented in another aspect of the case, without the consent of that party’s lawyer, or the authorization of law or court order.

The Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct allow a lawyer to provide the executor and trustee named in a deceased client’s estate planning documents with the final executed copies of those documents and whatever portions of the estate planning file may be helpful to the named fiduciary to carry out the deceased client’s intent expressed in those documents.

Rule 1.13 of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct governs when and whether an in-house lawyer is required to report possibly fraudulent conduct of the entity’s employees, officers, or other individuals to higher authorities within the organization and to others outside the organization. Even if such reporting is not required, an in-house lawyer may be permitted to disclose such information within the organization, subject to the lawyer’s obligations to maintain client confidences under IRPC 1.6 and 1.9.

Lawyers may state or imply that they practice in a partnership only when that is the fact. A law firm’s name may not imply a partnership when none exists. A law firm’s name must not mislead the public. But for limited exceptions, a law firm’s name should not include the name of a non-practicing lawyer. To be of counsel to a firm one must have a continuing and regular relationship with the firm. To practice as a limited liability partnership, the partnership’s name must end with one of several designations prescribed by statute.

A lawyer who mediated a divorce settlement between unrepresented husband and wife may not prepare a proposed judgment of dissolution of marriage, a marriage separation agreement and joint parenting agreement for husband and wife and allow husband and wife to file said documents as pro se litigants.

A law firm’s name may not imply partnership where no actual partnership arrangement exists. A law firm’s name may not mislead the public. A law firm’s name may not contain the name of a partner who withdraws from the firm to join another law firm. A law firm’s name may contain the name of a retired partner or one who has an “of counsel” relationship to the firm, provided the firm takes reasonable steps to show that partner’s status.

A law firm generally has no ethical obligation to file a lawsuit on behalf of a missing client to satisfy an impending statute of limitations. There may be exceptions, however, if the client specifically authorizes the filing of a lawsuit prior to the client’s disappearance and provides the law firm with sufficient information with which a complaint can reasonably be prepared and filed.

Law firm can properly pay former partner share of contingent fee earned after partner left firm to become State’s Attorney as long as payment is part of separation agreement under Rule 1.5(j) and payment does not violate public policy concerns; former partner’s disqualification from private practice as State’s Attorney does not bar payment to former partner of share of fee earned by firm after partner withdrew when paid as part of separation agreement; former partner sharing fee under Rule 1.5(j) need not retain responsibility for matter, share fee proportionally to service performed,

Absent disclosure and consent, a lawyer cannot represent an insurer with regard to a claim where the insurer’s interests are inconsistent with those of a reinsurer on whose Board the lawyer sits.