CBA Record

LEGAL ETHICS

John Levin’s Ethics columns, which are published in each CBA Record, are now in-

dexed and available online. For more, go to http://johnlevin.info/ legalethics/.

BY JOHN LEVIN Sole Practitioners and Serving the Middle Class T his is part three of a three-part series. The previous two columns discussed the surplus of law school

ETHICS QUESTIONS? The CBA’s Professional Responsibility Commit- tee can help. Submit hypothetical questions to Loretta Wells, CBA Government Affairs Direc- tor, by fax 312/554-2054 or e-mail lwells@ chicagobar.org. affecting ordinary middle class people become enmeshed in seemingly Byzantine regulations that should only realistically apply to complex institutions. And lawyers have to master these regulations to properly advise their clients. So what are possible remedies? The simplest is to change the law to make it more workable when applied to ordinary middle class people–but this is hopelessly aspirational. For lawyers, the best advice is to work within your competency or areas in which you can quickly learn the law. Oth- erwise, pass the matter on to the experts. For the middle class client, there is no easy answer. There will simply be questions that can only be handled by high-priced firm attorneys–and these questions will likely go unanswered.

risk of malpractice. The law had become so complex and specialized that there was no way to do it all. For example, imagine someone walking into an office with a question about his or her pension benefits. There is no practical way a lawyer could effectively answer the question unless that lawyer were an expert or had the time to do the necessary research (and a client willing to pay for it). The law is simply too complex. Recent changes in Illinois regarding handling of retainers and client funds, while not complex, add a level of administration which impacts the sole practitioner more than the firm lawyer. To make matters even harder, Rule of Profes- sional Conduct 1.1 (competence) has been interpreted to include technological com- petence and the understanding and use of social media. These topics require special training and evolve almost daily. Some of these problems are the unin- tended consequences of actions of the legal profession. As a society we try and correct problems and perceived injustice through laws and regulations. As lawyers, we are only too willing to help. However, as a consequence, minor personal matters

graduates unable to find work and the lack of affordable legal services for the middle class. One possible way to ameliorate this problem is to license non-lawyer legal prac- titioners to provide some of these services. (This solution is under consideration in a number of venues creating the predictable furor.) Another is for the surplus lawyers currently graduating from law schools to provide these services either as lower paid employees of firms or as sole practitioners. It is the latter alternative that prompted this column. The April 26 edition of the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin ran an article by John Flynn Rooney reporting that sole practitioners had more disciplinary matters before the Illinois ARDC than did attorneys working within firms. Some of the reasons given were the increasing complexity of running a law office and the lack of back-up in a solo practice. The statistic also reminded me of statements made by George Overton, who wrote this column for the CBA Record for many years. He said that a sole practitioner who tried to take on every case ran a high

RESOURCE PORTAL FOR SOLO PRACITITONERS AND SMALL FIRMS

John Levin is the retired Assis- tant General Counsel of GATX Corporation and a member of the CBARecord Editorial Board.

That the CBA has a FREE resource portal for solo small firm members? Access archived programs on firm

marketing, start up tips, legal software demos, client development and more. Go to www.chicagobar.org,

click on the Resources tab, then Solo Small Firm Resource Portal, or call 312/554-2070.

48 JULY/AUGUST 2015