Lawyers e-Journal
Thursday, Jul. 30, 2009
Legislative news
Legislature restores a portion of the Trial Court's FY 10 funding with enactment of supplemental budget; Federal Trade Commission announces 90-day delay in enforcing the “Red Flags Rule”
On Wednesday, the Legislature enacted a supplemental budget
that would restore $9.4 million of the $18.5 million that Gov.
Deval Patrick vetoed from the Trial Court's FY 10 budget.
Additionally, the supplemental budget restores $75,000
of the $111,000 cut from the Board of Bar Examiners account and the
$507,000 veto reduction of the Social Law Library account. The
supplemental budget now awaits action by Patrick, who has 10 days
to act on the legislation.
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The Federal Trade Commission announced
on Wednesday a 90-day delay in enforcing the "Red Flags Rule." The
rule will be enforced beginning on Nov. 1, 2009. The Red
Flags Rule was designed to combat identity theft and requires
certain creditors to develop and implement written programs to
identify, detect and respond to warning signs of identity
theft.
The FTC plans to apply the rule to
lawyers, despite the fact that they are not creditors. The
Massachusetts Bar Association has been working with the American
Bar Association, members of Congress and many other state and local
bar associations to convince the FTC to reconsider its position
applying the Red Flags Rule to lawyers engaged in the practice of
law.
Click
here to see MBA President Edward W. McIntyre's letter to the
FTC.