Friday follow-up: Puff, puff, PA’s overreach

Couple of quick hits (pun wasn’t really intended but just sort of happened) for this Friday.

A little more than a month ago, I wrote about an ethics opinion out of Ohio that created a real dilemma for lawyers looking to advise businesses related to the medical marijuana industry that was going to become legal in Ohio on September 8, 2016.  Under the analysis in the ethics opinion, Ohio’s RPC 1.2(d) prohibited lawyers from assisting people with such business endeavors.

Moving with what seemed like an unusual amount of speed when it comes to rule-making endeavors (and entirely contrary to the conventional wisdom that pot slows things down), the Ohio Supreme Court has adopted a revision to its RPC 1.2(d) to specifically address the situation and permit Ohio attorneys to assist clients in this industry.  The new rule language reads:

(d)(1)  A lawyer shall not counsel a client to engage, or assist a client, in conduct that the lawyer knows is illegal or fraudulent.  A lawyer may discuss the legal consequences of any proposed course of conduct with a client and may counsel or assist a client in making a good faith effort to determine the validity, scope, meaning, or application of the law.

(2)  A lawyer may counsel or assist a client regarding conduct expressly permitted under Sub. H.B. 523 of the 131st General Assembly authorizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes and any state statutes, rules, orders, or other provisions implementing the act.  In these circumstances, the lawyer shall advise the client regarding related federal law.

Now, I totally understand the addition of (d)(2), though it is the kind of hyper-specific revision to the language of a rule that makes me cringe on the inside.  But, I don’t quite understand why the Ohio court changed the language of (d)(1) to replace “criminal” with “illegal.”  Wonder what that is all about exactly and what they would articulate to be the difference in those two terms?

About a week before I wrote about the Ohio marijuana opinion, I wrote at length about a South Carolina ethics opinion that served as an exemplar of the kind of ethics opinion I anticipated a number of other states might write about the problems with  Avvo Legal Services.  Well, this month another state has added its voice with an ethics opinion pointing out ethical dilemmas for lawyers that might look to do business with that service and similar services. Pennsylvania has issued Formal Op. 2016-200: Ethical Considerations Relating to Participation in Fixed Fee Limited Scope Legal Services Referral Programs.  Ironically though, I can’t help reading the Pennsylvania opinion as being a bit more of an indictment of certain kinds of thinking in our profession than it is an indictment of the ethics problems with Avvo Legal Services.

I plan to write about this Pennsylvania opinion in more detail later — and can’t give you a link to go read it yourself because Pennsylvania still tries to keep its ethics opinions limited to members-eyes only in the online world.  (That is, in and of itself, a weird and outdated way of thinking altogether but that too would be a topic for another day.)

For today, I’ll simply preview that the fundamental problem I currently have with the Pennsylvania opinion is that it overreaches and comes across as indicative of a line of inflexible thinking that seems to be entirely out of touch with what is actually going on in the marketplace and that is mostly antithetical to innovation altogether.

Let me offer one example to hopefully pique your curiosity if not whet your appetite, it comes from Section IX of the opinion, titled “Access to Legal Services” —

Operators of FFLS programs argue that “unbundling” legal services reduces the cost to clients, thereby making legal services more accessible.  Expanding access to legal services is, of course, an important goal that all lawyers, and the organized Bar, should support.  However, the manner in which these FFLS programs currently operate raises concerns about whether they advance the goal of expanding access to legal services.  Further, compliance with the RPCs should not be considered inconsistent with the goal of facilitating greater access to legal services.  Any lawyer can offer “unbundled” or “limited scope” legal services at, or even below, the rates described by an FFLS program, provided the lawyer can do so in a manner that complies with his or her professional and ethical obligations, including the obligation of competence (see RPC 1.1) and full disclosure of and informed consent to any limitations on the scope of the legal services rendered.  If a lawyer cannot fulfill those obligations working outside the scope of an FFLS program, he or she almost certainly would not be able to do so working within such a program.

Really?