ISBA raises issue of nonlawyer ownership of law firms before ABA House of Delegates

President Thies delivers his remarks in support of Resolution 10A before the ABA's House of Delegates.President John E. Thies presented ISBA’s position against changing ABA ethics guidelines to permit nonlawyer ownership of law firms and sharing of law firm fees with nonlawyers in debate before the ABA House of Delegates on Monday. The ISBA Board of Governors passed a resolution in support of retaining a previously-adopted ABA policy that disallows such arrangements. ISBA and the ABA Senior Lawyers Division were the lead sponsors of Resolution 10A in the House of Delegates.

Resolution 10A seeks to reaffirm existing ABA policy that dates from 2000 – the MacCrate Resolution. That followed from an effort by accounting firms to provide legal services to their clients.

These accounting firms were dismissive of our ethical rules and persuaded an ABA commission that we should abolish the Rule 5.4 prohibition against the sharing of legal fees with non-lawyers and non-lawyer ownership.

This was Multi-Disciplinary Practice, or “MDP”, and permitting it was described as a critical part of providing better service to clients – it was supposed to be “consumer” friendly.

In actuality, it was an attempt to pad the bottom line at the expense of client service and protection.

Read the full text of President Thies’ remarks here

Read the text of the resolution and accompanying materials here

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Chris Bonjean

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