Abstract
Drawing on internal ABA documents, Professor Schneyer evaluates the recent ABA debate on whether to adopt an ethics rule banning law firms from offering non-legal services, such as environmental consulting, which are "ancillary" to the practice of law. He finds that the ABA Litigation Section, which proposed the ban, gained a rhetorical advantage in the debate by couching its arguments in the "idiom of professionalism." But he also shows that looking it this regulatory issue through the lens of professionalism produced serious flaws in the ABA's policymaking process. Relating the ancillary business debate to two earlier bar initiatives which were struck down by the Supreme Court— minimum fee schedules and bans on lawyer advertising—Professor Schneyer concludes that the idiom of professionalism is inimical to good policymaking and should be avoided whenever the ABA considers ethics rules in the future. In developing his argument, Professor Schneyer identifies a series of flaws that he believes may characterize all policy debates conducted in the idiom of professionalism.
How to Cite
35 Ariz. L. Rev. 363 (1993)
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