The State of Illinois is considering a new proposal relating to the mental health of legal professionals. Under the proposed law, lawyers having evidence suggesting a fellow attorney or judge is suffering impaired function due to mental or cognitive issues would be mandated to intervene and provide help.
This proposed regulation is amongst four suggested revisions to the state’s Rules of Professional Conduct, due for scrutiny by the Illinois Supreme Court Rules Committee at a hearing scheduled to take place on July 17 in Chicago. This initiative, proposed by the Supreme Court Commission on Elder Law, comes in response to increasing concerns surrounding an aging lawyer population. As this demographic grows in number, incidents of diminished capacity are likely to be more frequent, requiring new rules to face the emerging challenges.
For more in-depth coverage on these proposals, you can access the entire article on Bloomberg Law here. Discussion on this topic will be ongoing, and it remains a pertinent issue not only for Illinois but potentially as a model for other states contending with similar demographic shifts in the legal profession.