The Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility is pleased to announce that our Attorney Online Portal is now available. With the Portal you can:

• Review and update your contact information pursuant to Tennessee Sup. Ct. Rule 9, Section 20.5
• View your lawyer history with the BPR
• Change your Attorney Online Portal password
• Effective mid-January, pay your 2010 BPR Registration Fee with a credit card and complete the required IOLTA compliance statement. You can also use the online Pro Bono form to comply with the Supreme Court's request for voluntary reporting of pro bono activities

Your User ID is the e-mail address on file for you in the BPR's Registration Department. Your password was e-mailed to you by the BPR in August, 2009. If you experience difficulty accessing the portal, please send an email to support@tbpr.org.

On July 8, 2009, the Tennessee Supreme Court granted a petition to amend Rule 8, Rule of Professional Conduct 1.15 and Rule 43 of the Rules of the Tennessee Supreme Court to convert lawyer participation in the IOLTA program (Interest on Lawyer's Trust Accounts) to mandatory status. As a result, Tennessee joins 39 other states in which lawyers in private practice are required to maintain pooled client trust funds in IOLTA accounts. In addition to this change, Tennessee joins 25 other states whose IOLTA rules include interest rate comparability requirements.

Lawyers' Participation in this program will be monitored by the Board of Professional Responsibility via the 2010 Registration Statement. The consequence of non-compliance is summary suspension of law license. For answers to frequently asked questions regarding the substantive provisions of the new rules, go to www.tnbarfoundation.org.

As a part of the Court's Access to Justice initiative, the Court has amended Rule 9 and urges attorneys to report their prop bono activities. To facilitate this process, the Board of Professional Responsibility will include a Pro Bono Reporting Form with the 2010 BPR Registration Statement. For more information on voluntary pro bono reporting, read Rule 9, Section 20.11.