On April 1, 2025, the Illinois Supreme Court and the Supreme Court Executive Committee on the Practice of Law announced proposals to amend and create three new rules, effective July 1, 2025.
One of these proposals amends Supreme Court Rule 795(d) temporarily to create a two-year pilot project during which Illinois attorneys can receive Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit for providing pro bono legal assistance through Illinois Free Legal Answers, a virtual, internet-based legal advice clinic administered by the Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI). During the project, attorneys will earn 1 hour of MCLE credit for every 2 hours of pro bono participation in Illinois Free Legal Answers, up to 5 credits per 2-year MCLE reporting period. Data collected during the pilot will help PILI and the Executive Committee assess the impact of the program. The Court hopes the pilot it has approved will increase volunteerism, expand professional development through practical experience, and demonstrate a “framework for how to broaden initiatives to help people most in need.“
The Chicago Council of Lawyers, with its partner Chicago Appleseed, has long advocated in favor of a rule allowing attorneys to earn some MCLE credit for the supervised provision of pro bono legal services. Canons of professional responsibility universally emphasize the attorney’s duty to provide pro bono services; it is enshrined in Article VIII (6A) of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct. The Rules cast this as a responsibility to use our training, experience, and skills to provide services in the public interest without compensation—there is no mandatory pro bono requirement to retain one’s license—a tacit acknowledgement of the demands of pro bono representation which may conflict with time commitments to paying clients.
The Pro Bono Institute calls CLE credit for the provision of legal services an “underrated avenue to increased access to justice“, noting that between 2000 and 2023, nearly half of U.S. states have adopted a rule to offer CLE credit for pro bono work—access to zealous representation must not be a privilege reserved for the wealthy or well-connected. But it must be acknowledged that the demands on an attorney’s time are already significant. Allowing attorneys to earn some CLE credit for their pro bono work is a small safety valve on the pressures on their time.
Twenty States currently have rules permitting CLE credit for pro bono work. The rules vary, but the amount of CLE credit that lawyers are allowed to claim for pro bono service averages out to 3 hours per year. Most states allow 1 hour of CLE credit for 5 hours of pro bono service.
The CLE requirement itself serves a critical purpose—to foster attorney competence and ethical and professional behavior through education and continued attention to the evolution of the law. Pro bono representation can further this purpose. First, a lawyer often must either learn or refresh his or her knowledge of an area of the law in order to provide pro bono representation. The representation, itself, is often taken under the supervision of a legal aid office. Second, especially for young lawyers, pro bono representation provides unique opportunities that the lawyer may otherwise not be able to obtain. Attorneys may provide pro bono work in an area of law they don’t practice at their firm. They may be given a chance to practice a skill that they have not had at work, such as drafting petitions for emergency orders of protection, or assisting at trial. Practical legal education through pro bono representation—and the training to provide it—can be more rewarding, more meaningful and a better education than some CLE seminars.
We are excited to see Illinois pilot a program to allow attorneys to earn CLE credit for pro bono service. We look forward to seeing analysis of the data from the pilot and hope it results in a more expansive rule for Illinois.
