Attorney Privilege.

• Author: Joseph, James
• Position: Attorneys should be allowed to have multidisciplinary practices

Customers love one-stop shopping. So why are lawyers dead set against it for their own profession?

"I am free to be protectionist," insisted Robert Ostertag, displaying a novel concept of freedom. Testifying against a measure to introduce competition into his industry, he continued, "What I see...is what you and I have witnessed in connection with the demise of our nation's neighborhood bookstores at the hands of Barnes & Noble and Borders [and] our neighborhood drugstores at the hands of the major pharmaceutical companies."

Why was Ostertag so alarmed? Around what victimized industry was he determined to circle the wagons? Farming? Small-town banking?

Amazingly, it was the legal profession.

Ostertag is a lawyer. And not just any lawyer: Besides practicing with a small Poughkeepsie law firm, he is a past president of the New York State Bar Association, a member of two association committees, and an adjunct professor at the prestigious Fordham Law School. Though most people don't fear that lawyers will disappear anytime soon, Ostertag is one of many attorneys waging a solemn battle on one side of what the American Bar Association calls "the most important issue to face the legal profession this century": multidisciplinary practice, or MDP.

Lawyers define MDP as the ability to share fees and join with nonlawyer professionals in a practice that delivers both legal and nonlegal professional services. Rule 5.4 of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, adopted by every state, currently forbids the practice by providing that a lawyer "shall not" share legal fees with a nonlawyer, form a partnership with a nonlawyer that in any way practices law, permit a nonlawyer to direct the lawyer's professional judgment, or form a firm in which a nonlawyer owns an interest.

The self-aggrandizing majesty of the word professional aside, the MDP concept is hardly new. Seventy-five years ago, if you needed cough syrup, pork chops, and petunias, you also needed three different stores. Today, pharmacists, butchers, and florists commonly work under one roof in an aptly named "supermarket." Businesses have learned that consumers are happiest when they can buy more things on fewer trips for less money. Innovation by combination has given rise to companies that offer books and coffee, fitness and therapy, auto parts and baby clothes, and even that most American of combinations, laundry and bourbon.

The corporate marketplace is no different. Gone are the days when, say, employees at Arthur Andersen only counted beans. Today its Web site offers a nine-point list of "Market Offerings" for its clients, embodying the financial service industry's move...