Over the past two years the TADC Board of Directors and its ethics and professionalism committee has been researching, monitoring and analyzing developments across the country on problems related to the unauthorized practice of law, the attempts by corporations to practice law and pressures on lawyers' abilities to exercise independent judgment in face of billing and handling guidelines that have been promulgated by nonlawyers. They are extremely concerned by the pressures placed on the lawyer and the dilemmas created when nonlawyers in corporations attempt to control the practice of law. They have looked closely at the experience of patients and doctors when medical care is delivered in a corporate setting and controlled by non-physicians who are not restrained or even inspired by the ethical obligations which apply to the medical profession. A proposal endorsing MDPs ignores the lessons that have been learned by the medical profession's experience with HMOs and invites similar consequences to the practice of law. Only a lawyer owes to the client the ethical professional obligations contained in the canons of legal ethics.
Imputation can only apply to a law firm.
To expect an entire MDP to be bound by the conflicts and ethical rules of the legal profession is unfounded and, quite frankly, na ve, especially when the proposal contains little procedure for enforcement or audit of compliance with ethical considerations. MDPs create a risk unacceptable in today's society that the professional and ethical commitment of the lawyer to the client will be pressured by business considerations and ultimately diminished. The recommendation and some of the related materials suggest that because MDPs operate in certain European countries, and may, in fact, already exist in the United States they are simply a fait accompli that should be accommodated. Such a suggestion seems to say that the profession should bow to the emergence of a practice that may, in fact, be in conflict with the rules of ethics rather than try to enforce the existing ethical rules. The implication that MDPs operate in the United States is disturbing, absent the profession's identified effort to challenge the practice as being in violation of ethical canons.