In June a special joint commission of the Virginia State Bar and the Virginia Bar Association will make recommendations on MDPs to the bar counsel. What the recommendations will be is anyone's guess. Virginia Bar Association's ethics counsel James M. McCauley says consensus won't be reached easily. Clients could be served faster and more efficiently by accountants and lawyers. Combining accounting and law works elsewhere, notably in Europe.
Lawyers face different ethics standards, such as confidentiality.
Younger lawyers won't gain as much law experience if they work for small accounting firms. Lawyers might be pressured by market forces, not their legal responsibility. But if they're not practicing law, as those who work for accounting firms say, they're no longer under the jurisdiction of the Virginia State Bar. Proponents argue that if you recognize multidisciplinary practices and create regulations for lawyers working in those practices, you eliminate the possibility of maverick attorneys practicing law while they say they're not. On the other side of the debate are the traditionalists who worry about the potential conflict for lawyers working in non-law firms and being forced to serve two masters.