CBA Record January-February 2023

YOUNG L AWYERS S EC T I ON : BU I LD I NG BR I DGE S

such a situation is to provide all additional information that may be requested and be upfront and truthful with the interviewer in answering their questions. If all goes well, you will be recommended for admis sion to the Illinois Bar. But Wait…There’s More! After receiving your license in the mail, do not make the mistake I did in believing the process was over. In the other states where I had been previously admitted, once I completed the application and paid the fees, that was it, and I got my attorney reg istration cards in the mail sometime later. But that is not the case here in Illinois. Once you receive your official Illinois license, you must proactively register with the Attorney Registration and Disciplin ary Commission and pay your registration dues for the year. This fact was not dis closed during the process—I learned it in passing a little over a month after having received my Illinois bar license. To regis ter, go to ARDC’s website at registration. iardc.org/attyreg/registration, complete the requirements, and pay any required registration fees. You will receive your ARDC attorney registration card within a few weeks. As you will learn, the ARDC is the entity through which you must renew your registration on an annual basis. It is also the entity that handles attorney dis ciplinary complaints and investigations. Therefore, it is crucial to familiarize your self with the ARDC as a newly admitted Illinois attorney. After being admitted and registering with the ARDC, I once again assumed that the process was over. I believed I would not have to complete any Minimum Con tinuing Legal Education in my first year as an Illinois attorney. This belief was based on my prior admission experience: in those two states (as well as several other states across the country), newly admitted attorneys generally do not need to take any MCLE in their first reporting year. Newly Admitted Attorney Requirements

But once again, I was wrong about Illi nois. A couple months after I received my ARDC registration card, I learned that as a newly admitted Illinois attorney, I needed to complete 15 hours of MCLE within my first year of practice in Illinois. This 15-hour requirement must also include a 6-hour “Basic Skills” course or enrollment in a mentoring program approved by the Commission on Professionalism, while the remaining nine hours can be general approved Illinois MCLE credits. So, I started looking for MCLE courses geared toward basic attorney skill sets—I took a course on motions to dismiss prac tice in Illinois state courts, and I also attended an Illinois state-specific depo sition skills workshop. I figured these would count toward my newly admitted attorney “Basic Skills” MCLE credits. However, this was not the case. Had I dis covered the MCLE Board’s website earlier on, I would have saved a lot of confusion. The MCLE Board’s website (www. mcleboard.org) has an “Attorneys” page that includes a frequently asked questions section specifically for newly admitted attorneys. That section provides detailed information on how you can find an accredited “Basic Skills” course that meets your newly admitted attorney CLE requirements—and as a bonus, many of the courses found using the MCLE Board’s references are completely free. The site also provides detailed informa tion about approved mentoring programs should you decide to go that route instead. Another thing I learned was that some newly admitted attorneys are exempted from the 15-hour MCLE requirement. Examples of possible exemptions include being a law clerk for a federal judge in any jurisdiction for at least one day during the MCLE reporting period, being a law clerk for an Illinois state court judge for at least one day during the MCLE reporting period or being active-duty military for at least one day during the MCLE report ing period. Contact the ARDC or MCLE Board directly to determine if you qualify for one of these exemptions. Once you successfully complete the

MCLE requirements (that is, if you are not exempted), you must report your compliance on or before your specific reporting deadline. This deadline is set exactly one year after the last day of the month in which you were admitted to the Illinois Bar. You can report your compli ance online at the MCLE Board’s website. If you do not timely report your compli ance, you can incur a costly late fee and possibly face other consequences. Your normal two-year MCLE report ing period begins on the July 1 following your newly admitted attorney completion deadline. If your last name begins with A through M, your reporting period will be in even-numbered years. If your last name begins with N through Z, your reporting period will be in odd-numbered years. And voila, it is as simple as that. Maybe not so simple—but at least you are now armed with valuable information I wish I had when I was a freshly minted Illinois attorney.

Nikki Marcotte, an asso ciate at Tabet DiVito & Rothstein LLC, primarily practices general commer cial litigation in state and federal courts throughout the country. Marcotte is also passionate about pro bono work that directly impacts LGBTQ+ indi

viduals and other historically marginalized com munities, and much of Marcotte’s pro bono practice centers on working with the Midwest Innocence Project to free wrongfully incarcerated individuals and representing other indigent prisoners in state and federal postconviction matters.

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