He mentioned the thousands the Big Five employ in the U.S. in areas such as employee benefits, environmental, real estate, corporate securities and labor. Accounting firm lawyer partners in practicing tax or consulting violate Model Rule 5.4 without challenge. At the September 1998 meeting in Vancouver the IBA adopted a resolution on multi-disciplinary practices. Mr. Bower echoes the IBA resolution in its lawyer directive to the WTO that considers client protection and public interest the only legitimate grounds for regulation. He commented that it is difficult to shut down an ongoing practice, that the number of lawyers in the U.S. probably equals the total elsewhere in the world and that MDPs present potential abuses to the client because of their compromise in the areas of conflicts and privilege.
Clients do, however, want services better, faster and cheaper.
Pensa Altman Weil plans to conduct in the first quarter of 1999 and he will request of the IBA whether he can share its survey of IBA Councilors regarding the status of MDPs in their jurisdictions published in the IBA 50 th anniversary celebration compendium in June 1997. Forty jurisdictions responded to that survey. To the question whether clients, depending on size, experienced different problems he said that smaller clients do not recognize risks vs. benefits of a MDP whereas the larger clients do. There should, in any case, be identification of the legal provider if the MDP includes legal services, somewhat on the order of a law firm properly identifying an ancillary business. He responded to Ms. Lamm that the existing lawyer regulatory authority in the jurisdiction enforces an IBA resolution and added that he and the IBA thought it impractical to try and regulate nonlawyers.