1976, July, Pg. 951. From the Wool-Sack(fn1).

• Author: by Christopher R. Brauchli

5 Colo.Law. 951

Colorado Lawyer

1976.

1976, July, Pg. 951.

From the Wool-Sack(fn1)

951Vol. 5, No. 7, Pg. 951From the Wool-Sack(fn1)by Christopher R. BrauchliCharm'd with the foolish whistling of a name. Virgil

There are available hundreds of articles telling lawyers about law office management, how to practice, how to bill, etc. To my knowledge, no article has ever been written about the process of firm name selection, and it is to that process that this column addresses itself.

One of the first things every lawyer notices while browsing through Martindale-Hubbell in search of a firm name is that the names of the successful firms contain the names of dead people. Indeed, not only are the name partners frequently dead but under the column entitled "Member of the Firm" their names appear first. Only after their names have been listed do the living partners' names appear. It is not my purpose to explain why a man who died in 1889 is considered a member of a firm practicing law in 1976.(fn2) (The cynical observer of our profession might view this as proof that the legal profession is too tied to precedent, if a decedent can be properly called a precedent, and too little concerned with either the present or the future.) My purpose is to explain why lawyers who are not so fortunate as to begin their practice in firms already peopled by the departed may be forever barred from the joy of sharing profits and losses with one who is no longer of this world. The reason is found in DR 2-102 (B) of the Disciplinary Rules. This rule prohibits practicing under a name which is deceptive or misleading. It is apparently not misleading under a name which is deceptive or decedents and for that firm to treat decedents as members if at some point the decedent actually had something to do with that firm or one of its predecessors. It would, however, be misleading for a lawyer to pick out a name for his firm by going through old obituary columns seeking names that sound lawyerlike and then use them as part of his firm name. The ethical problems in that situation would be greatest if the decedent was never a lawyer, since by listing him as a member of the firm the lawyer is assisting decedent in the unauthorized practice of law even though he, being dead, is probably not actively engaged in much of anything. It is no solution, moreover, to...