Jacoby & Myers challenges US law prohibiting non-lawyer ownership of law firms

Plaintiff firm Jacoby & Meyers has sued New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, claiming that state laws prohibiting nonlawyers from owning a stake in law firms are unconstitutional because they restrict interstate commerce. The firm says that it needs an infusion of capital to expand its operations, hire additional attorneys and staff and upgrade its offices and technology. As the Wall Street Journal Law Blog points out, the brief filed this week in New York made an appeal Senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan’s sense of adventure: This Court stands at the crossroads of the modern-day evolution of the practice of law. The status-quo is changing, and practitioners in the United States are at risk of falling behind. Jacoby & Meyers is prepared to adapt to the new realities of the profession, but needs a jurist with the same profile in courage to ensure that antiquated barriers to its survival are cast aside. Judge Kaplan has suggested that the firm faces an uphill battle.

Jacoby & Myers challenges US law prohibiting non-lawyer ownership of law firms blogs.wsj.com Sat, Jan 21, 2012