Three Western states’ efforts to rethink how they regulate the legal profession have drawn plenty of attention, and rightly so.
But Arizona, California, and Utah are not alone in examining hot-button topics such as whether to allow fee splitting with nonlawyers.
In Illinois, a panel created by the Chicago Bar Association and Chicago Bar Foundation is examining potential changes to the state’s legal marketplace.
The Task Force on the Sustainable Practice of Law & Innovation held its first meeting early last month.
A press release announcing the panel’s creation highlighted that the task force will strive to propose regulatory changes bolstering access to justice for consumers. But the chairs of the task force also made clear in their prepared statements that the panel will examine how to improve the legal market for lawyers.
“We intend to evaluate technologies, rule modifications and other changes, including the possible expansion of legal referral platforms to promote a more viable and sustainable law practice for Illinois attorneys,” said Task Force Co-Chair E. Lynn Grayson of Nijman Franzetti LLP.
Task Force Member Jayne Reardon said in an interview that she is glad the panel will be dually focused on “the fact we have so many lawyers who cannot have a sustainable and rewarding practice at the same time we as a profession are failing to meet the civil legal needs” of consumers.
While the justice gap has been well-documented for some time, Reardon said she thinks the myriad challenges facing lawyers in the current environment have been a key driver of the active focus on legal regulatory reform in multiple states.
“What I think is different now is that it has become clear over the last several years that the construct and structures of the legal profession are not working for lawyers either,” said Reardon, executive director of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism.
The Illinois task force also plans to closely follow developments in the Western states that are further along in their reform efforts, and it has established a National Advisory Council to help it do so.
Utah’s Work Group on Regulatory Reform released its recommendations in August. They were adopted by the Utah Supreme Court soon after, and the state’s implementation work is underway.
Arizona’s Task Force on the Delivery of Legal Services released its report and recommendations last month. The Arizona Judicial Council will determine next steps.
California’s Task Force on Access Through Innovation of Legal Services released tentative recommendations in the summer and is working to complete a final report in the coming months. Several members of that panel are on Illinois’ National Advisory Council.
Reardon said she thinks Utah has proposed the most novel approach to date. One of their recommendations called for the creation of a “regulatory sandbox” that will allow nontraditional legal services providers to “test innovative legal service models and delivery systems.”
These providers, such as legal tech companies, will be permitted to do their testing without being accused of engaging in the unauthorized practice of law. They will do so under the supervision of a new regulator implementing a “risk-based, empirically-grounded regulatory process for legal service entities.”
“Utah is in fact reimagining legal services in a way that breaks out of the constraints that have been basically the norm for the last 100 years,” Reardon said. “There is a lot of promise there. How they work out the regulatory piece and the regulatory sandbox will be interesting to watch.”
As for Illinois, the task force there hopes to identify and recommend ethics rules changes to the Illinois Supreme Court by September 2020.
Lyle Moran is a freelance writer in San Diego who handles both journalism and content writing projects. He previously reported for the Los Angeles Daily Journal, San Diego Daily Transcript, Associated Press, and Lowell Sun. He can be reached at lmoransun@gmail.com and found on Twitter @lylemoran.