According to a recent opinion from the Illinois Bar Association’s Ethics Committee, an attorney can usually dispose of closed client files after seven years without trying to locate the clients and give them advance notice.

A recent Illinois ethics opinion, advised that although a lawyer is obligated to reveal confidential information about a client if is deemed reasonably necessary to prevent certain death or substantial bodily harm, a client’s addiction to heroin or opioid drugs will not trigger that obligation, absent more specific factual details that indicate the risk is not simply remote and uncertain.

Closing the doors on a law firm includes much more than just locking the door behind you. “Dissolution” means the process of terminating the law firm’s existence as a legal entity. DC