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Nonlawyers can partly personal legislation corporations in Puerto…
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Nonlawyers can partly personal legislation corporations in Puerto Rico beneath revised ethics guidelines
By Debra Cassens Weiss
June 25, 2025, 2:59 pm CDT
Puerto Rico has enacted new lawyer ethics guidelines that permit nonlawyers to have an possession curiosity in legislation corporations. (Picture from Shutterstock)
Puerto Rico has enacted new lawyer ethics guidelines that permit nonlawyers to have an possession curiosity in legislation corporations, a departure from Mannequin Rule 5.4 of the ABA Mannequin Guidelines of Skilled Conduct on skilled independence.
Though Puerto Rico’s new ethics guidelines are modeled on the ABA Mannequin Guidelines, the supply permitting nonlawyer possession of corporations is a key change, the LawSites weblog studies.
Nonlawyers wouldn’t be allowed to personal greater than 49% of the shares within the legislation workplaces, in response to a ChatGPT translation of the rule printed by LawSites.
The rule additionally states that legislation workplaces partly owned by nonlawyers should be operated by legal professionals licensed in Puerto Rico. The nonlawyers can’t intrude with legal professionals’ impartial skilled judgment and can’t present providers to the legislation workplaces.
The Puerto Rico Supreme Courtroom, which adopted the ethics rule, plans to evaluate its effectiveness after three years.
The one different jurisdictions that permit nonlawyer possession of corporations are Arizona and the District of Columbia, LawSites studies. Utah additionally permits nonlawyer possession however solely beneath the restrictions of its regulatory sandbox program.
See additionally:
Following a long time of discourse on nonlawyer authorized providers, questions of motives proceed
How ethics reforms in Arizona led to LegalZoom’s legislation agency
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