Trisha Rich

Trisha Rich is a Partner and Chair of the Legal Profession Team in the Chicago office of Holland & Knight LLP, where she practices litigation, legal ethics, and professional responsibility law.

In her legal ethics practice, Ms. Rich advises lawyers, law firms, legal technology companies, and in-house legal counsel on a wide variety of legal ethics and professional responsibility issues, including matters pertaining to confidentiality, conflicts, privilege, fee disputes, lawyer mobility issues, and others. She also works as an expert witness in the area of legal ethics and professional responsibility law.

In her litigation practice, she handles primarily complex commercial litigation. She is a member of the Trial Bar for the Northern District of Illinois and has argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Ms. Rich is the author of more than 60 published works and an adjunct professor of legal ethics at New York University School of Law. She is a frequent speaker and educator on a variety of professional responsibility and legal ethics issues. Ms. Rich founded and coordinates the Attorney Defense Initiative, the first privately sponsored pro bono program in the nation that focuses on assisting impaired lawyers facing disciplinary charges.

Ms. Rich received undergraduate and graduate degrees from Western Michigan University, and her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. Ms. Rich is a former philosophy lecturer and has taught practical and theoretical ethics at two universities.

Ms. Rich is a member of the Illinois Judicial Ethics Committee, Chicago Inn of Court, Lawyers Club of Chicago, and the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility. She is also the Immediate Past President of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers. Finally, she is a proud member of the Chicago Bar Association, where she currently serves as Secretary of the organization.

Ms. Rich has received numerous awards for her pro bono and charitable work, including the Northern District of Illinois Award for Excellence in Pro Bono Service, the Chicago Bar Association’s David C. Hilliard Award for Outstanding Committee Service, the Chicago Bar Association’s Milton H. Gray Award for Outstanding Project Leadership, and the Chicago Bar Foundation’s Maurice Weigle Exceptional Young Lawyer Award. She was a recipient of Crain’s Chicago Business’ 2018 40 Under 40, Law Bulletin Media’s 2017 40 Under Forty, Crain’s Chicago Business Notable Litigators and Trial Attorneys, has been twice named to Crain’s Chicago’s Notable Women Lawyers list (2018, 2020), and was in the 2021 class of Leadership Greater Chicago. She is a National Institute of Trial Advocacy Master Advocate and was named in the 2021 edition of Law Bulletin Media’s Chicago’s Notable Women Lawyers.

Ms. Rich has served on the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism since 2017.