For example, Model Rule 5.1, which holds supervisory attorneys and partners accountable for the work of subordinates, was adopted in the 1980s. It, and its companion rules, arose from the realization that individuals work in organizations, that organizations offer incentives and disincentives for professionalism and that therefore organizations are a key to compliance. This is consistent with regulatory developments in general. The proposed narrowing focus overlooked what we know about organizational behavior. I cannot speak for other professions, but I doubt that lawyers would function at their ethical best in an MDP in which individual professionals march to the beat of their own ethical drummers.
Compliance requires mutual reinforcement, peer support and clear institutional messages.
Nor, of course, is it inevitable that the MDPs will be controlled by individuals whose specialties are governed by formalized code. Certified public accountants have their own rules, but many of the specialties included in today's professional services firms are not directly subject to professional codes or standards of any kind. This distinction, by the way was not lost on the Commission. Its report distinguished between its treatment of MDPs controlled by lawyers and those not controlled by lawyers. In addition, the accounting profession recognizes the critical role of independence and control, by requiring that auditing can be performed only by firms controlled at least fifty percent by CPAs.