CBA Record July-August 2026

Trisha Rich with some Holland & Knight colleagues, receiving the WBAI 2026 Top Women Lawyer in Leadership Award.

lawyers through her strong commitment to giving back to the legal community despite maintaining an active and challeng ing practice. She has served in leadership roles in many legal and community organizations, including the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism, the Illinois Judicial Ethics Committee, the Chicago Bar Foundation’s Justice Entre preneurs Project, and Lawyers Lend-A-Hand to Youth. She is a Past President of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers, the national legal ethics bar association. Her CBA resume is long: Past roles include Secretary, First Vice President, serving on the Board of Managers, and leading or serving on many committees, including Finance, Member ship, CLE, and others. With Amarilio, she was a long-time host of the CBA’s podcast, @theBar, then the leading metropolitan bar association podcast in the country. Perseverance Brings Rewards Rich’s career also demonstrates the importance of perseverance and professional involvement. As she’d learned in law school, she knew that she wanted to work in legal ethics, the perfect combination of her law and philosophy backgrounds. A young associate at Holland & Knight, Rich worked with partner Colin Smith on professional responsibility matters. Although she enjoyed the work, she wasn’t sure how to build a practice in legal ethics. She turned to the CBA and became co-chair of the YLS Professional Responsibility Committee. In 2013, Holland & Knight acquired a practice that included ethics attorneys, allow ing Rich to seize the opportunity to make her dream of a legal ethics practice a reality. She recalls meeting with the attorneys

for lunch in the now-shuttered Heaven on Seven and writing out a business plan on a napkin. Rich brought her connections in Chicago and her energy to the group. That, coupled with their experience, meant that together they could make a legal ethics practice in Chicago work. From that cocktail napkin, Rich built a career that has led to her being one of the most nationally recognized experts on legal ethics, which now includes an adjunct professorship teaching legal ethics and professional regulation at NYU School of Law. She also founded the Attorney Defense Initiative, the nation’s first privately sponsored pro bono initiative focused on assisting impaired lawyers facing disciplinary charges. None of this surprises Grammig, who describes Rich as one of the most entrepreneurial people he has ever met. “She’s always looking for a better mousetrap,” he says. That mindset has been a hallmark of her career. Throughout her practice, Rich has gravi tated toward emerging issues at the intersection of legal ethics, business, and the evolving legal profession. Working alongside her colleague Josh Porte, she helped build a nationally recog nized practice advising law firms, investors, and other stakehold ers on complex regulatory and professional responsibility issues arising from new business models and industry developments. In the process, she has become one of the country’s leading voices on the future of legal services and the ethical challenges that accompany innovation. Bob Glaves, the Executive Director of The Chicago Bar Foundation, is unsurprised by Rich’s ability to blaze new paths. Wanting to solve problems and help others is “emblematic of her,” Glaves says, “She’s always willing to give her time and

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