Successful corporations are made up of several people who are all good at what they do. They probably are not good at everything, but they do not have to be. At law firms, lawyers have to be most things. ABA model rule 5.4 prevents the sharing of legal fees with a nonlawyer. Firms can still pay consultants or employees to perform certain tasks, but non-lawyers cannot own equity in the firm. According to the comments in the rule this limitation is “to protect the lawyer’s professional independence of judgment.” The policy behind 5.4 is to protect the consumer and safeguard the integrity of the profession. Good goals no doubt. However it begs the question: how is the industry supposed to evolve?

Lawyers are trained in reading and interpreting the law, and then applying that interpretation. They are not trained in marketing, management, technology, etc. They are also pretty damn cookie-cutter after they get out of law school. Every single one of them had similar, accredited education through the same Socratic method. We go out into the world, do what we are taught, and the profession is safeguarded from corruption. That same uniformity is why most lawyers reading this will have the gut reaction to disagree because I am hinting we tear down one of the ethics pillars.

But what’s the unintended consequence?

We have dismal access to justice. Self represented litigants make up more than 80% of the case load in some counties across the nation – and those are just the people who are going to court! Many people do not even make it that far. Opening up law firm ownership to individuals from the business world and other industries may spur the disruptive innovation the industry needs. The thing is, we can still have an ethics regime that mandates professional independence of lawyers. We can write a new rule that places that mandate on the individual.

Besides, what are we trying to “protect?” What are we so proud of? Our profession is supposed to dispense justice – a thing of which we are the gatekeepers and ambassadors. We have built a system that for one reason or another precludes a huge percentage of the population. Yes, we protect, maintain, and administer our craft – to about 1/5 of the population. I suggest we climb down from our ivory towers and see what distribution ideas the Mark Zuckerbergs and Elon Musks of the world have in mind.

We need the legal equivalent of Tesla. That thing that just makes so much sense everyone will be doing it in five years. If we offer the most innovative brains of our time a slice of the industry pie they just may help us out.