Professional Standards Committee
June 8, 2006
The following is for study only and has NOT been approved by the Professional Standards Committee, the Executive Committee or the Board of Directors.
In October 2005,the Business Practices Task Force recommended that the Professional Standards Committee adopt procedures to expedite ethics hearings and to “put the teeth” into the ethics process. At the January 2006 Professional Standards Committee meeting, a number of proposed changes to the ethics rules were approved in concept.
At that meeting, a work group was drafted to work on a step-by-step implementation proposal, to be presented to the full Committee, for comment, at its June 2006 meeting. The following is a list of nine proposals to be discussed by the Work Group during their first meeting:
- Citation system (fines and ethics school concept);
- Ethics Advocate;
- Mediation before ethics hearing;
- Circuit Court;
- Venue for Disciplinary Complaints;
- Subcommittee of Grievance Committee investigates all anonymous complaints;
- Rent-a-Judge to hear cases all over state;
- Ethics hotline (similar to state bar); and
- Failure to file arbitration w/n 180 days.
Accompanying this Issues Briefing Paper is a detailed Implementation Guideline for the nine proposals, along with eighteen model documents tobe used in implementation by the local associations. Comments from the Committee The Committee members are asked to review the Implementation Guidelines and model documents and submit their comments to
prostandards@car.org, no later than July 30, 2006.
Those comments will be considered by the
Professional Standards Working Group on Implementation of Business Practices Task Force Recommendations, as they prepare to presenttheir final recommendations to the Committee at the October 2006 Committee meeting.
