To register by mail, you should fill out the form that you received.  The form includes mandatory malpractice, trust account and pro bono reports, in addition to options for submitting corrected or changed information. Return the entire form with any payment due in the enclosed envelope. Please note: that envelope is addressed to a lockbox at Illinois National Bank, and your registration form and payment must be sent to that address: ARDC, P.O. Box 19436, Springfield, Illinois 62794-9436. Payments cannot be accepted at ARDC offices. Instructions pertinent to particular aspects of the registration by mail process follow.

Verifying and Changing Registration Information

Begin by reviewing the preprinted Verification of Registration Information section at the bottom of the front side of the form. If any of the preprinted information is inaccurate or any information is missing, use the Change of Information sections on the front page to report the correct information.

Business and Home Addresses. Please note: your registration address and phone number are public information. If you do not provide a business address or phone number, the ARDC considers your home address and phone to be your public registration information. Registration information for active lawyers is accessible to the public via the ARDC Web site or by calling or writing the ARDC.

Law School Attended. Click here for Law school codes or call our Chicago office (312) 565-2600 to obtain the law school codes.

Mailing Preference. Unless you direct otherwise, the ARDC will send any mailings to you at your business address. If you want mail from the ARDC sent to your home, check the appropriate box(es) in this section of the form.

Registration Status. The “Verification of Registration Information” section shows the status for which you last registered (active, inactive or retired) or, if you failed to register, the form will show your status as “removed.”

Only active lawyers are authorized to practice law in Illinois or under the authority of an Illinois license. Fees for active lawyers vary; they appear in the schedule that follows these instructions.

If you register as inactive, you pay a reduced fee of $105. You may not practice in Illinois until you resume active status, which you may do by submitting to the ARDC written notification of your intent to change to active status with payment of the balance of the fee due for active lawyers, usually another $184.

If you register as retired, you pay no fee. You may not practice in Illinois unless you first return to active status, which you may do by submitting to the ARDC written notification of your intent to change to active status along with payment of full active fees for each year you were registered as retired, as well as any amounts due for years prior to your assuming retirement status.

Changing Status. If you wish to change your status from that shown on the Verification of Registration Information form, simply check the appropriate box in the change of status portion of the front side of the form.

Calculating Fee Due. If you change status, the fee you owe will likely be different from that shown on the Verification of Registration Information form as “Total Due.” For help in determining your fee, click 2008 Fee Schedule or click Registration Department for our contact information.  If the payment you send is incorrect, we will either bill you for any amount due or refund any overpayment. Your registration will not be complete until the full amount due is received.

Mandatory Malpractice Insurance Report

Supreme Court Rule 756(e) requires that, as part of the annual registration process, Illinois lawyers must report whether they carry malpractice coverage and, if so, the dates of coverage for the policy. Only sitting judges or magistrates who are exempt from paying a registration fee are exempt from this requirement. For all others, Rule 756(g) provides that a lawyer who fails to provide the malpractice insurance information will be deemed to be not registered for the year.  A law firm may answer the malpractice insurance report for all of its lawyers.  Click Unified Reporting by Law Firms.

You must answer the questions in the “Mandatory Malpractice Insurance Information” section on the back side of the Registration Form to comply with this requirement. If you answer that you have insurance, then you must also retain for seven years documentation showing the name of the insurer, the policy number, the amount of coverage and the term of the policy. Do not send that documentation with your registration form. It must be produced only if a specific request is made by the ARDC as part of a future audit of the information reported on the registration form.

The Lawyer Search service at the ARDC Web site will show whether a lawyer reported that he/she did or did not carry insurance as of the date the lawyer most recently registered.

Mandatory Trust Account Report

Supreme Court Rule 756(d) requires that as part of registering annually, each lawyer must identify all accounts maintained by the lawyer during the preceding twelve months for holding property of clients or third persons, and indicate whether each such account is an IOLTA account, as defined in Rule 1.15(d) of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct. If a lawyer does not maintain a trust account, the lawyer must state the reason why no such account is required. Rule 756(g) provides that a lawyer will be deemed not registered for the year if the lawyer has failed to provide trust account information as required by Rule 756(d).  A law firm may make the trust account report for its lawyers.  Click Unified Reporting by Law Firms for details.

The Trust Account Report section on the back side of the registration form reflects information you reported in a previous year in black type next to the relevant query. (Any information provided in past years on supplemental sheets will not appear.) If the information shown in black on the form remains accurate, you need not enter any information in this section. If the information shown in black has changed, follow the instructions below for entering those changes. If no information appears, you must answer the questions in this section of the form in order to register.

Changing Trust Account Information. If any trust account information has changed, you can generally make corrections by providing updated or corrected data in the spaces adjoining the previous year’s report, with the following exceptions or additional directions.

Previous Account Closed. If you closed the account shown in black type, and opened a different account, report the new account in the spaces adjoining the closed account information. If you closed the account and did not open another one, check the box at 2.d. Please note: if you are no longer reporting any account, you should change your answer to Question 1 (whether you carry a trust account) to “no” and you must answer Question 3, identifying the reason you do not have a trust account.

Additional Accounts. New or changed information for additional accounts should be submitted on a separate sheet. Please be sure to include your name and registration number on that sheet.

For information on proper trust account practices, consult the Client Trust Account Handbook, available at the ARDC Web site (www.iardc.org) under “Publications,” or by calling our Chicago office. For information on Illinois financial institutions that provide favorable terms for IOLTA accounts, contact the Lawyers Trust Fund at (312) 372-5906 or www.ltf.org.

Mandatory Report of Voluntary Pro Bono
Service and Contributions

Effective for this registration cycle, the Supreme Court adopted Rule 756(f) mandating that Illinois lawyers report pro bono service as part of the annual registration. The rule does not mandate that lawyers perform pro bono service, only that every lawyer report what service he or she performed in the past year.  In addition, law firms are encouraged to report their pro bono contributions.  Click Law Firm Pro Bono Contribution Report for details.

The report is intended to serve as an annual reminder to the lawyers of Illinois that pro bono legal service is an integral part of a lawyer’s professionalism. (See Supreme Court Rule 756, Committee Comment of June 14, 2006.) The rule will also allow the profession to quantify the vast voluntary contributions Illinois lawyers make to legal services for the poor and other charitable legal endeavors.

Please note: you must answer questions 1 and 2 (and applicable subparts of either) for your registration to be complete. If you forget to answer these questions, you will not be registered.

Rule 756(f) and an amendment to Rule 766 provide that information reported pursuant to this rule will be deemed confidential and that the information can be reported publicly only in the aggregate. The purposes of the rule do not require the ARDC to retain the capacity to link the information to individual lawyers except to verify that each lawyer has made the report. The ARDC will maintain the information so that it is not available to ARDC staff with investigative or prosecutorial responsibilities. Only registration staff responsible for verifying that the report has been made and computer staff charged with constructing an aggregate report of the information will be able to access the information reported.

Concluding Instructions

Before returning the application, please check to see that you have signed and dated the Verification of Registration Information portion at the bottom of the front side of the form. Your signature verifies the accuracy of your registration information, and your registration is not complete without that verification.

The Registration Form and payment must be returned by January 1, 2008. Checks should be made payable to “A.R.D.C.” A return envelope addressed to the ARDC lockbox at the Illinois National Bank, P.O. Box 19436, Springfield, Illinois, 62794-9436, is enclosed with your registration materials for your convenience. Upon receipt of your information and payment (where due), the ARDC will send you an identification card showing that you have registered for 2008. Please note that if you need an ID card by January 1, 2008, you should mail your registration form and payment by December 9, 2007.

If you have any questions, you can consult this website at www.iardc.org or contact our Registration Department.