Office of Bar Counsel

• Jurisdiction: Wyoming,United States
• Citation: Vol. 43 No. 3 Pg. 100
• Publication year: 2020
• Pages: 100
• Year: 2020
• topic: Business of Law,Employment Law,Technology

Office of Bar Counsel Vol. 43 No. 3 Pg. 100 Wyoming Bar Journal June, 2020

Supervising Nonlawyer Staff From a Distance: Rule 5.3 in the Time of the Pandemic

Mark W. Gifford, Wyoming State Bar Office of Bar Counsel Cheyenne, Wyoming.

The Wyoming Rules of Professional Conduct, like the ABA Model Rules upon which ours are based, impose particular duties upon lawyers when it comes to training and supervising nonlawyer assistants. Rule 5.3 requires lawyers who manage a law firm or directly supervise nonlawyers to make reasonable efforts to ensure that nonlawyers employed or retained by the lawyer or firm conduct themselves in a manner consistent with the lawyer’s ethical obligations. The rule also requires partners, managers and direct supervisors to take prompt corrective action when they learn of misconduct by a nonlawyer assistant. The ABA’s Model Guidelines for the Utilization of Paralegal Services provide broad guidance that is equally applicable to all non-lawyer staff, not just paralegals.

The Guidelines recognize that a lawyer may delegate to a nonlawyer any task normally performed by the lawyer except those tasks proscribed to a nonlawyer by state, court rule or other controlling authority, provided that the lawyer maintains responsibility for the work product. A lawyer may not, however, delegate to a nonlawyer (1) responsibility for establishing an attorney-client relationship; (2) responsibility for establishing the amount of a fee to...