I get a lot of calls from lawyers who want to vet some creative (and some boneheaded) business ideas. Sometimes, when I tell them their plan is best avoided unless they want the experience of being my client in the disciplinary dock, they respond with a variation of “Where is the law that says I can’t do this?” My reply is often: “Show me the law that says you can.”
I recently saw an article about a New York ethics opinion in response to a lawyer’s proposal to do some legal work for a company that was going to fill in and process applications for Americans applying for citizenship status in foreign countries. Instead of answering the question posed with a yes or no, the New York folks punted and simply identified 21 different rules and legal considerations that might have to be addressed to give the requester a full answer.
