By: Edward Wiest

Edward Wiest — Fri, 25 May 2007 08:54:35 +0000

You may be right that most ethics rules governing firm names, advertising and multi-jurisdictional practice have disparate effects on solo and small firm lawyers (apart from being nonsensical). On some issues, however, solos have pushed for aggressive ethics enforcement, particularly on issues related to multijurisdictional practice (NJ once required all out of staters to maintain a “bona fide office” (dedicated phone and location physically separate from one’s home), as a condition of licensure.) When NJ began to relax its ridiculously restrictive rules, solo lawyers were in the vanguard of opposition, as they are in many places on unauthorized practice issues.
Shinglers may be hurt more often than not by silly ethics rules–but many are often as willing as anyone else to use ethics rules as a weapon against competition if they can do so.

Comments on: Are ethics rules biased against solos? Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want, but there’s proof….

By: Edward Wiest