Ethics
Nonlawyers can partly personal legislation companies in Puerto Rico below revised ethics guidelines
Puerto Rico has enacted new lawyer ethics guidelines that permit nonlawyers to have an possession curiosity in legislation companies. (Picture from Shutterstock)
Puerto Rico has enacted new lawyer ethics guidelines that permit nonlawyers to have an possession curiosity in legislation companies, a departure from Model Rule 5.4 of the ABA Mannequin Guidelines of Skilled Conduct on skilled independence.
Though Puerto Rico’s new ethics guidelines are modeled on the ABA Mannequin Guidelines, the supply permitting nonlawyer possession of companies is a key change, the LawSites blog reviews.
Nonlawyers wouldn’t be allowed to personal greater than 49% of the shares within the legislation workplaces, based on a ChatGPT translation of the rule printed by LawSites.
The rule additionally states that legislation workplaces partly owned by nonlawyers have to be operated by attorneys licensed in Puerto Rico. The nonlawyers can’t intervene with attorneys’ impartial skilled judgment and can’t present providers to the legislation workplaces.
The Puerto Rico Supreme Courtroom, which adopted the ethics rule, plans to evaluate its effectiveness after three years.
The one different jurisdictions that permit nonlawyer possession of companies are Arizona and the District of Columbia, LawSites reviews. Utah also allows nonlawyer possession however solely below the restrictions of its regulatory sandbox program.
See additionally:
Following decades of discourse on nonlawyer legal services, questions of motives continue
How ethics reforms in Arizona led to LegalZoom’s law firm
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