Who’s licensed to practice law in Illinois?
None of your business.
That’s what the state Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission has told a Seattle company that wants to post the names of lawyers on the Internet and assign grades based on performance, awards, experience and disciplinary records.
Avvo has posted information online about lawyers in more than a dozen states. The company, which started its Web site a year ago, says it has gotten lists of lawyers from 30 states.
Illinois, however, has balked.
The company has been trying for the Illinois list for months, says Josh King, Avvo general counsel. Now, the company is, politely, going after the state Supreme Court, which is in charge of the state’s master list of attorneys. A petition — don’t call it a lawsuit, the company says — requesting the list was filed Wednesday after the ARDC, an arm of the Supreme Court, refused to hand it over.
“It makes eminently good sense that a list of persons licensed to practice law in Illinois would be considered public information,” writes Avvo attorney Steven Pflaum in the petition. “Consumers should be able to determine whether persons holding themselves out to be lawyers are, in fact, licensed attorneys.”
James Grogan, ARDC spokesman, said court rules prohibit giving out lists of attorneys for political or commercial purposes. The only entities authorized to receive the list are the bar association, courts and continuing legal-education providers, he said, and unless there is specific authorization in court rules, the list can’t be released.
“It’s the Supreme Court’s call to make,” Grogan said. “We’re more than happy to do whatever the court wants us to do.”
The court has ended its May term and won’t begin its next term until September, Grogan said, so a decision could be months away.
Anticipating that the court might not be eager to release information that would put lawyers on junk mailing lists, Avvo in its petition says it would be satisfied with names only, without addresses.
And if the Supreme Court says no?
Pflaum acknowledges there would be no avenue of appeal.
“They’re the Supreme Court; they control information,” Pflaum said. “It’s their call.”
He points out that the names can already be accessed on the ARDC’s Web site, which also states addresses, disciplinary records and whether lawyers have malpractice insurance.
However, there is no way to get a complete list of lawyers from the ARDC’s Web site, which requires users to punch in names to get information. So, if you already know Abraham Lincoln is a lawyer, you can check him out (and yes, Lincoln is listed on the ARDC’s Web site, which states he is deceased and not authorized to practice). But without knowing Lincoln’s name, he would be a very tiny needle in a very large haystack that includes more than 85,000 practicing lawyers.
