An ABA ethics committee cracked the door open for lawyers to invest in new legal businesses in Arizona and Utah. Do law firms want to make these investments too? Can they safely do so? Have an opinion? Email me here. Want this dispatch in your inbox every Thursday? Sign up here.
Firms Investing in Firms. Perhaps
Let’s just say the American Bar Association hasn’t been the biggest proponent of regulatory changes that would allow for new models of law firm ownership. When presented with a resolution in 2020 encouraging the organization to take a leadership position in fostering “new approaches” to the practice of law, with the aim of reducing the access to justice gap, state bar leaders said no. Instead, they worked to dilute the measure before it went to the House of Delegates for a vote. And that group ultimately approved a resolution that encouraged legal innovation while cautioning that it was not recommending any changes to the status quo on outside ownership of law firms or the unauthorized practice of law.
