Setting Up Shop with Other Divorce Professionals: Precedent-Setting Rules for Attorneys Adopted in New York

New York has recently become the first state in the nation to adopt rules governing lawyer participation in multidisciplinary networks or practice groups. These rules have important implications for how divorce cases will be handled by divorce professionals in the future. Since the divorce process bridges many disciplines, it appears to be an ideal medium for establishing and formalizing working relationships between allied divorce professionals (see “Get By With a Little Help from Your Friends”).

Previous rules did not prohibit lawyers from entering into strategic alliances with non-lawyer professionals. The new rules, however, serve to formalize the process because they establish guidelines for lawyers who choose to enter into formal contractual relationships with non-lawyers. Under the new rules, non-legal professionals must meet certain minimal educational standards and be subject to enforceable rules of ethical conduct. Non-lawyers can have no control over the manner in which the lawyer or law firm practices law. Finally, a lawyer who refers a client to a non-lawyer professional with whom the lawyer has such a relationship, or who receives a referral of a client from that non-lawyer professional, is required to disclose this relationship to the client and obtain the client’s prior written consent.

While there is a national code of ethics for attorneys, ethics-related decisions are made by state bar associations. Nevertheless, the new New York rules could be widely emulated by other states. California has already begun to take similar steps to New York and other states are expected to soon follow.