The 15-member committee will hold its first meeting Sept. 8. At the top of the committee's agenda is the controversial concept of multidisciplinary practices, in which attorneys become business partners with nonlawyers, such as accountants. The American Bar Association last month rejected the notion, but the debate lives on with state bar associations. Fain's committee also will examine multijurisdictional practices, in which attorneys practice law in more than one state. Finally, the committee will look at the legal sites that are cropping up on the Internet.
Many sites are informational pages posted by law firms.
But others dispense legal advice, raising questions about who is doing the dispensing. ABC Legal Messengers Inc. now has connections in Japan. The downtown Seattle company last month signed an agreement with the All Japan Investigators Association of Tokyo, in which the two firms promise to be each other's exclusive agents in their respective countries. The deal brings an international flavor to ABC, which provides legal messengers, investigators and process servers out of seven offices in Central Puget Sound. Nearly 300 people work for the privately held company.