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Adams and Reese Partner and legal ethics attorney Lucian Pera was a special guest on an American Bar Association podcast discussing Model Rule of Professional Conduct – Rule 5.4. Pera was interviewed by Emil Ali, Partner with McCabe and Ali LLP.
The two discussed fee sharing and non-lawyer ownership under Rule 5.4: Professional Independence of a Lawyer, which reads:
(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, partner, or associate may provide for the payment of money, 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 purchases the practice of a deceased, disabled, or disappeared lawyer may, pursuant to the provisions of Rule 1.17, 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; and
(4) a lawyer may share court-awarded legal fees with a nonprofit organization that employed, retained, or recommended employment of the lawyer in the matter.
(b) A lawyer shall not form a partnership with a nonlawyer if any of the activities of the partnership consist of the practice of law.
(c) A lawyer shall not permit a person who recommends, employs, or pays the lawyer to render legal services for another to direct or regulate the lawyer's professional judgment in rendering such legal services.
(d) A lawyer shall not practice with or in the form of a professional corporation or association authorized to practice law for a profit, if:
(1) a nonlawyer owns any interest therein, except that a fiduciary representative of the estate of a lawyer may hold the stock or interest of the lawyer for a reasonable time during administration;
(2) a nonlawyer is a corporate director or officer thereof or occupies the position of similar responsibility in any form of association other than a corporation; or
(3) a nonlawyer has the right to direct or control the professional judgment of a lawyer.
At Adams and Reese, Pera primarily practices legal ethics, media law, and commercial litigation. He represents lawyers, law firms, and others on issues of legal ethics and lawyer professional responsibility. The American Bar Association Center for Professional Responsibility recently bestowed on him the Michael Franck Award, their highest award for work in the field of ethics and professional responsibility over a career.
Pera served for five years on the ABA “Ethics 2000” Commission, which rewrote the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. He has chaired the editorial board of the ABA/BNA Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Conduct and served as president of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers. He is a former ABA Treasurer and a former Tennessee Bar Association President.