A decision on MDPs will have to be made by the Law Society, hopefullysooner rather than
later, although it is fair to say that the Law Societycannot have been much helped by
the poor response to the discussion paper.The arguments continue, but all have a common
thread. On one side of thedebate are the traditional lawyers who believe that MDPs
should be banned.They raise three objections:Unauthorised practice of law. Rules and
statutes generally seek to protectthe public against the practice of law by individuals
who are not licensed.The argument here is: what constitutes the practice of law? In the
UK thishas been addressed by identifying service areas as either reserved tolawyers or
unreserved, in which case either non-lawyers or lawyers canperform them so long as the
status of the non-lawyer providers is disclosedto the client.Lawyer independence. This
is a practice rule issue which deals with theprohibition of splitting fees or
profit-sharing. This can well be arguedalong the lines that there is no difference in
financial considerations inmulti-disciplinary practices than in wholly-owned practices
on alawyer-client relationship.Conflict of interest. Here the argument is that MDPs
present conflicts ofinterest based on the differences in the fundamental roles and
functionsbetween auditors and lawyers. Auditors have to whistle blow but lawyers,
ofcourse, are obliged to secure client confidentiality. Supporters of MDPsargue that law
firms frequently represent clients with conflicting interestby obtaining waivers from
clients and building Chinese walls. Lawyers canown ancillary businesses so why can they
not in business in an MDP havesimilar Chinese walls between themselves and their
co-owner?On the other side of the argument are those organisations which considerthat
MDPs are an essential way of moving forward and just plain commonsense.MDPs could well
be the saviour of the small local law firm, particularlythose with specialisms which
could enter into a perfectly valid businessarrangement with a non-lawyer to provide the
one-stop shop to local people.Obviously decisions will be made but the profession in
this country shouldwake up to the realisation that MDPs are not some two-headed monster
butactually a business opportunity which should be embraced and allow firmsboth small
and large to move forward into the 21st century.Attempts to ban MDPs, as seem to be
indicated in the World TradeOrganisation discussion, are seen as nothing more as
retention of thestatus quo and therefore the creation of a system of
economicprotectionism. As such, I believe the banning of MDPs is certain to fail.Brian
Marson, Marsons Solicitors
