Court Opinion

ID: 9686877
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:10:18.298327+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:22.738253
License: Public Domain

Dieterich, J.
(dissenting in part). I agree with the majority’s conclusions as to the impropriety of the neon sign in defendant’s office window, and also with the imposition of costs under Count I of the complaint. However, I must respectfully dissent from that portion of the per curiam *529opinion which holds that it is unprofessional conduct for an attorney to allow a separate income-tax service to be carried on from his office.
The per curiam opinion deems it unprofessional for an attorney to share office space, clerical help, and other expenses with another enterprise without first arranging things so that the public will know that the law office and the other enterprise are totally independent. This has the effect of making it unprofessional and unethical for a young attorney to accept an offer from, say, his father to share office facilities, clerical help, and other items of expense unless the father is a lawyer. I cannot agree with such a determination.
If the burden is on the attorney to arrange things so that this independence will be obvious to the general public, why is it not incumbent upon one challenging such an arrangement at least to allege that the law practice and separate enterprise are, in fact, not independent? Aside from an allegation pertaining to the presence of the neon sign, Count II of the complaint in the instant action alleges only that defendant’s wife conducts an income-tax business in defendant’s office space and that defendant has some undefined interest therein. There is no allegation that the two are not independent. Indeed, the majority characterizes the wife’s income-tax service as a “separate business.”
This court has deemed it proper to allow real-estate brokers to practice law “a little bit” simply because they have been doing so for a number of years.1 It is apparent from the per curiam opinion in the instant case that lawyers are now prohibited from sharing office space with certain lay people unless certain vague and undefined standards are met. I cannot concur in the imposition of such restrictions upon the practice of law.

 State ex rel. Reynolds v. Dinger (1961), 14 Wis. (2d) 193, 109 N. W. (2d) 685, in which Currie, Hallows, Dieterich, JJ., dissented.