What is the Dowling decision about and what does it mean for my practice?
If you take retainers, i.e., fees in advance of legal services to be performed, the Illinois Supreme Courts decision in Brian Dowling v. Chicago Options Associates, Inc. et al. (DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary (US), LLP), 226 Ill.2d. 277, 875 N.E.2d 1012, 314 Ill.Dec. 725 (Ill. 2007) impacts your practice. The Dowling decision addresses the issue of who owns fees paid by a client to a lawyer in anticipation of legal services: the client or the lawyer. The answer to this question impacts on where those fees are to be deposited: if the fees remain the property of the client, they must be deposited in the trust account; if they become the lawyers property, then the lawyer would deposit those fees in his/her business account. Payment by a client to a lawyer for services already rendered are not effected by this decision because in those circumstances there is no issue of whose property it is: it the lawyers and would be deposited in the lawyers business account. The Court in Dowling identifies
