This material is general public information for educational purposes only. It should not be used as legal, financial, or tax advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created by reading it. Federal, state, and local rules may vary and may change over time. A qualified professional can review specific circumstances.
Key Facts
- National overview: The original ABA Now page at abanow.org/2013/01/2013mm107b/ could not be fetched, so the exact headline and body text remain unverified.
- National overview: The strongest supported match is ABA Ethics 20/20 material on Revised Resolutions 107A and 107B filed for the February 2013 ABA Midyear Meeting.
- National overview: The House of Delegates Filings page lists Revised Resolutions 107A and 107B as filed on February 1, 2013.
- National overview: The ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 states that the ABA House of Delegates approved Revised 107B on February 11, 2013 at the ABA Midyear Meeting in Dallas, Texas.
- National overview: ABA materials say Revised 107A and 107B addressed limited practice authority for foreign in-house counsel.
- National overview: ABA materials describe a wording change from advice given “in consultation with” a U.S. lawyer to advice given “based on the advice of” a lawyer licensed and authorized by the relevant jurisdiction.
- State level: The ABA said the wording change was meant to align the provision with the ABA Model Rule for Licensing and Practice of Foreign Legal Consultants and reduce ambiguity for states considering adoption.
- National overview: The ABA House of Delegates is the association’s policy-making body, so this 2013 action reflected ABA policy rather than binding Federal or State law by itself.
Why this archive page needed reconstruction
This is an archive recovery piece. The legacy ABA Now URL for `abanow.org/2013/01/2013mm107b/` returned a 404 page. Because the original page could not be fetched directly, this article does not reconstruct an exact headline or quote missing text. Instead, it identifies the strongest supported subject using current ABA primary materials and presents that history as general legal information.
- Why this archive page needed reconstruction
- The strongest supported match is Revised 107A and Revised 107B
- What happened in February 2013
- What Revised 107A and Revised 107B were about
- The wording change that the ABA highlighted
- Why the ABA said the revision mattered
- Why this was not binding law by itself
- What can and cannot be said about current status
- Bottom line for the 2013mm107b recovery
- Sources
The strongest supported match is Revised 107A and Revised 107B
The best available match is ABA Ethics 20/20 material tied to Revised Resolutions 107A and 107B. The clearest source is House of Delegates Filings, which lists “2013 House of Delagates Revised Resolutions 107A & 107B” as filed on February 1, 2013.
That filing record makes it reasonable to say the missing January 2013 archive item appears to have concerned those revised resolutions. It does not prove the exact original ABA Now headline, whether the missing item was a filing notice, a preview, or a recap, or the exact wording that appeared on the unrecovered page.
What happened in February 2013
According to ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20, the ABA House of Delegates approved Revised 107A, Revised 107B, 107C as amended, and 107D on February 11, 2013 at the ABA Midyear Meeting in Dallas, Texas.
That sequence matters because it shows two separate points in the historical record:
| Event | Supported date | Source significance |
|---|---|---|
| Filing of Revised 107A and 107B | February 1, 2013 | Shows the proposals were formally on file before the meeting |
| House approval of Revised 107B | February 11, 2013 | Shows the ABA later adopted the proposal as association policy |
So the available Sources support a pre-meeting filing followed by later House approval, even though the exact missing archive page cannot now be read.
What Revised 107A and Revised 107B were about
The ABA Commission materials state that Revised 107A and 107B related to limited practice authority for foreign in-house counsel. In plain English, the topic involved how ABA model-rule language addressed the work of foreign lawyers serving as in-house counsel and the limits on advice about U.S. law.
That topic sits at the intersection of lawyer regulation, multijurisdictional practice, and State adoption of model rules. It is not a Federal statute or Federal regulation issue in the Sources reviewed here. It is a historical ABA policy development with possible State-by-State relevance.
The wording change that the ABA highlighted
The ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 duplicate summary preserves the key before-and-after explanation.
According to that ABA page, the original resolutions said foreign in-house counsel could not advise on the law of a U.S. jurisdiction except in consultation with a U.S. lawyer authorized to provide that advice. The revised language instead said foreign in-house counsel could not advise on the law of a U.S. jurisdiction or of the United States except based on the advice of a lawyer licensed and authorized by the jurisdiction to provide that advice.
That change was the core policy substance behind Revised 107B as preserved in the current ABA record.
Why the ABA said the revision mattered
The ABA explained that the wording change was made to promote consistency with the ABA Model Rule for Licensing and Practice of Foreign Legal Consultants. The ABA also said the change was intended to avoid ambiguity and confusion for states considering whether to adopt the rules.
That explanation matters because it shows the resolution’s purpose. The 2013 action was not framed as a national law taking immediate effect everywhere. It was framed as model-rule development aimed at improving clarity for jurisdictions that might later use similar language.
Why this was not binding law by itself
The ABA House of Delegates identifies itself as the policy-making body of the association. That point sets the legal boundary for this archive recovery article.
An ABA House resolution can be influential, but it is not binding Federal law by itself and it does not automatically rewrite State lawyer regulation nationwide. State treatment varies by jurisdiction. The reviewed evidence does not establish a current nationwide adoption map for the revised 107B language.
That distinction keeps the historical event in the right frame: influential professional policy, not an enacted nationwide rule.
What can and cannot be said about current status
The available evidence supports a clear historical account of the 2013 ABA action. It does not support broader claims about present-day nationwide adoption, current foreign in-house counsel registration rules across all jurisdictions, or the exact text of the missing ABA Now page.
For current legal status, the safest sourced statement is narrow: State regulation of lawyer licensing and foreign in-house counsel practice varies by jurisdiction, and the reviewed Sources do not establish a full modern 50-state picture.
Readers comparing this page with other ABA archive recoveries may find useful context in this ABA House approval archive item and this archived ABA policy coverage page, both of which show how older ABA news items often described association policy rather than binding law.
Bottom line for the 2013mm107b recovery
The missing `2013mm107b` page cannot be reproduced word for word from the evidence available in this run. Still, the strongest supported identification is that it concerned ABA Ethics 20/20 Revised Resolutions 107A and 107B, filed on February 1, 2013 and later approved by the ABA House of Delegates on February 11, 2013 in Dallas.
Historically, the item mattered because it captured a model-rule change about limited practice authority for foreign in-house counsel and the way such counsel could rely on advice from lawyers licensed in the relevant U.S. jurisdiction. Legally, the event is best understood as ABA policy development with possible State relevance, not as a stand-alone Federal or nationwide rule.
