Paragraph: (Society_Law_and_Justice/oanc-Higher_Registration_Fees-2.txt)
Sent 1: Registration fees for Illinois lawyers could jump as much as $49 a year if lawmakers adopt two separate measures to bolster pro-bono services and support for lawyers with drug and alcohol problems.
Sent 2: The Illinois Supreme Court is pushing for legislation that would allow it to dedicate money raised through the fee hikes to legal services to the poor.
Sent 3: The justices are floating a $42 increase to shore up financing for pro-bono work, as the normal funding mechanism for legal services has fallen short in recent years.
Sent 4: Currently, support for non-profit legal aid groups comes from interest generated on the Lawyers' Trust Fund, which pools clients' money that attorneys hold for such matters as escrow funds.
Sent 5: But low interest rates and a sagging economy mean there is less money being generated.
Sent 6: After hours of discussion, the high court agreed that raising the registration fees would be the best way to address the declining revenues, Chief Justice Moses W. Harrison II said.
Sent 7: The judges were reluctant to raise those fees but eventually decided that supporting probono services was important enough "and lawyers had a responsibility to contribute" to the cause, Harrison said.
Sent 8: Last year, the high court raised the base fee for active attorneys to $180 from $140.
Sent 9: Lawyers in their first three years of practice or who are inactive pay $90, and retired lawyers pay nothing.
Sent 10: Legislation circulated by the high court's lobbyist specifies that the hike would apply to attorneys "paying full annual registration fees."
Sent 11: In 2001, there were 57,392 active attorneys in Illinois and 74,311 on the full roll, according to the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.
Sent 12: The hike would raise roughly $2.4 million.
Sent 13: Last year, interest on the trust fund totaled $4.5 million, but service and handling fees consumed $538,000 of that amount.
Sent 14: This year's returns are projected to be anywhere between $700,000 and $1 million short of that mark, said Ruth Ann Schmitt, the executive director of Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois.
Sent 15: Harrison said the fee hikes are designed only to counter the shortfall in interest income, not add to the total amount available.
Sent 16: "Our legal services are already stretched to the breaking point," Schmitt said.
Sent 17: "We have a tough time raising enough money to properly fund services that our clients need."
Sent 18: Neither the Illinois State Bar Association nor The Chicago Bar Association has taken a stance on the proposed hikes.
Question: How much are lawyers paying for their registration fees now? (false/0)
Question: Why does the Illinois Supreme Court want to raise the registration rates for Illinois lawyers? (false/1)
Question: How much are the year's returns projected to cover for the income in interest? (false/2)
Question: Who made the following remark: "We have a tough time raising enough money to properly fund services that our clients need." (false/3)
Question: Why were judges initially reluctant to raise registration fees? (false/4)
Question: Why did the high court raise the base fee for active attorneys to $180 from $140? (true/5)
Question: How much is the registration fee hike and what is cited as the reason for the lack of generated funds? (true/6)
Question: As of 2001 , how many attorneys where on full role and how much money would the hike generate? (false/7)
Question: The Judges reluctantly raised the rates to how much? (true/8)
Question: Name three things these funds support. (false/9)
Last updated: Mon Apr 16 04:55:33 EDT 2018
Generated from a file named: /Users/daniel/ideaProjects/hard-qa/split/train_456.json