职业行为准则

规则5.4:澳门赌场官网的职业独立性

  (a) A lawyer or law firm shall not share legal fees with a nonlawyer, except that:
      (1) An agreement by a lawyer with the lawyer’s firm, 合作伙伴, 或者合伙人可以提供金钱支付, over a reasonable period of time after the lawyer’s death, to the lawyer’s estate or to one or more specified persons;
      (2) A lawyer who undertakes to complete unfinished legal business of a deceased lawyer may pay to the estate of the deceased lawyer that proportion of the total compensation which fairly represents the services rendered by the deceased lawyer. 购买死者澳门赌场官网事务所的澳门赌场官网, 禁用, 或者失踪的澳门赌场官网可能, 按照规则1的规定.17, pay to the estate or other representative of that lawyer the agreed-upon purchase price.
      (3) A lawyer or law firm may include nonlawyer employees in a compensation or retirement plan, even though the plan is based in whole or in part on a profit-sharing arrangement;
      (4) Sharing of fees is permitted in a 合作伙伴ship or other form of organization which meets the requirements of paragraph (b); and
      (五)澳门赌场官网可以分担澳门赌场官网费, whether awarded by a tribunal or received in settlement of a matter, 与一家非营利性组织合作, 保留, or recommended employment of the lawyer in the matter and that qualifies under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
   (b) A lawyer may practice law in a 合作伙伴ship or other form of organization in which a financial interest is held or managerial authority is exercised by an individual nonlawyer who performs professional services which assist the organization in providing legal services to clients, 但前提是:
      (1) The 合作伙伴ship or organization has as its sole purpose providing legal services to clients;
      (2) All persons having such managerial authority or holding a financial interest undertake to abide by these 职业行为准则;
      (3) The lawyers who have a financial interest or managerial authority in the 合作伙伴ship or organization undertake to be responsible for the nonlawyer participants to the same extent as if nonlawyer participants were lawyers under 规则5.1;
      (4) The foregoing conditions are set forth in writing.
   (c) A lawyer shall not permit a person who recommends, 雇佣了, or pays the lawyer to render legal services for another to direct or regulate the lawyer’s professional judgment in rendering such legal services.

评论

   [1] The provisions of this rule express traditional limitations on sharing fees with nonlawyers. (On sharing fees among lawyers not in the same firm, 看到 规则1.5(e).) These limitations are to protect the lawyer’s professional independence of judgment. Where someone other than the client pays the lawyer’s fee or salary, 或推荐聘请澳门赌场官网, that arrangement does not modify the lawyer’s obligation to the client. 如(c)段所述, such arrangements should not interfere with the lawyer’s professional judgment.
   [2]传统, the canons of legal ethics and disciplinary rules prohibited lawyers from practicing law in a 合作伙伴ship that includes nonlawyers or in any other organization where a nonlawyer is a shareholder, 导演, 或官. 尽管有这些限制, the profession implicitly recognized exceptions for lawyers who work for corporate law departments, 保险公司, 法律服务机构.
   [3] As the demand increased for a broad range of professional services from a single source, lawyers employed professionals from other disciplines to work for them. So long as the nonlawyers remained employees of the lawyers, these relationships did not violate the disciplinary rules. 然而, when lawyers and nonlawyers considered forming 合作伙伴ships and professional corporations to provide a combination of legal and other services to the public, they faced serious obstacles under the former rules.
   [4] This rule rejects an absolute prohibition against lawyers and nonlawyers joining together to provide collaborative services, but continues to impose traditional ethical requirements with respect to the organization thus created. 因此, a lawyer may practice law in an organization where nonlawyers hold a financial interest or exercise managerial authority, but only if the conditions set forth in subparagraphs (b)(1), (b)(2), 和(b)(3)满足, 并根据(b)(4)分段, satisfaction of these conditions is set forth in a written instrument. The requirement of a writing helps ensure that these important conditions are not overlooked in establishing the organizational structure of entities in which nonlawyers enjoy an ownership or managerial role equivalent to that of a 合作伙伴 in a traditional law firm.
   [5]规则5下的非澳门赌场官网参与人.4 ought not be confused with nonlawyer assistants under 规则5.3. Nonlawyer participants are persons having managerial authority or financial interests in organizations that provide legal services. 在这样的组织中, lawyers with financial interests or managerial authority are held responsible for ethical misconduct by nonlawyer participants about which the lawyers know or reasonably should know. This is the same standard of liability contemplated by 规则5.1, regarding the responsibilities of lawyers with direct supervisory authority over other lawyers.
   [6]规则5规定的非澳门赌场官网助理.3 do not have managerial authority or financial interests in the organization. Lawyers having direct supervisory authority over nonlawyer assistants are held responsible only for ethical misconduct by assistants about which the lawyers actually know.
   [7] As the introductory portion of paragraph (b) makes clear, the purpose of liberalizing the 规则 regarding the possession of a financial interest or the exercise of management authority by a nonlawyer is to permit nonlawyer professionals to work with lawyers in the delivery of legal services without being relegated to the role of an employee. 例如, the rule permits economists to work in a firm with antitrust or public utility practitioners, psychologists or psychiatric social workers to work with family law practitioners to assist in counseling clients, nonlawyer lobbyists to work with lawyers who perform legislative services, certified public accountants to work in conjunction with tax lawyers or others who use accountants’ services in performing legal services, and professional managers to serve as office managers, 执行董事, 或者处于类似的位置. 在所有这些情况下, the professionals may be given financial interests or managerial responsibility, so long as all of the requirements of paragraph (c) are met.
   [8] Paragraph (b) does not permit an individual or entity to acquire all or any part of the ownership of a law 合作伙伴ship or other form of law practice organization for investment or other purposes. 因此，它不允许成立公司, 一家投资银行公司, 一个投资者, or any other person or entity to entitle itself to all or any portion of the income or profits of a law firm or other similar organization. Since such 一个投资者 would not be an individual performing professional services within the law firm or other organization, the requirements of paragraph (b) would not be met.
   [9] The term “individual” in subparagraph (b) is not intended to preclude the participation in a law firm or other organization by an individual professional corporation in the same manner as lawyers who have incorporated as a professional corporation currently participate in 合作伙伴ships that include professional corporations.
   [10] Some sharing of fees is likely to occur in the kinds of organizations permitted by paragraph (b). Subparagraph (a)(4) makes it clear that such fee sharing is not prohibited.
   [11] Subparagraph (a)(5) permits a lawyer to share legal fees 与一家非营利性组织合作, 保留, or recommended employment of the lawyer in the matter. A lawyer may decide to contribute all or part of legal fees recovered from the opposing party to a nonprofit organization. Such a contribution may or may not involve fee-splitting, 但是当它发生的时候, the prospect that the organization will obtain all or part of the lawyer’s fees does not inherently compromise the lawyer’s professional independence, whether the lawyer is employed by the organization or was only 保留 or recommended by it. A lawyer who has agreed to share legal fees with such an organization remains obligated to exercise professional judgment solely in the client’s best interests. 此外, fee-splitting in these circumstances may promote the financial viability of such nonprofit organizations and facilitate their public interest mission. 与示范规则5的相应规定不同.4(a)(5), this provision is not limited to sharing of fees awarded by a court because that restriction would significantly interfere with settlement of cases, without significantly advancing the purpose of the exception. 以防止滥用这一更广泛的例外, it applies only if the nonprofit organization qualifies under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.