The Oklahoma Bar Journal September 2022

may be for each lawyer to buy their own copier, particularly since there is often less need for huge copy jobs in many law offices today. You may even want to include provi sions on sharing common facilities, including day-to-day maintenance and cleanup of those areas. What is the term of the agree ment or is it indefinite? How are changes to the agreement handled? What if there is a tie vote? Each dif ferent arrangement may have dif ferent concerns. If someone is dead set against doing this in contract form, at least they should agree to the preparation of an unsigned memo as to agreed terms. Then there’s the matter of liability insurance. The lowest-risk scenario would include an exe cuted agreement between all the officemates, where each agrees to carry a minimum amount of

too sick to appear at that arraign ment, your officemates are likely among the first you would call. All participants should also agree never to refer to the practice being a partnership or firm. There are many other aspects of business that need to be considered. The lawyers need a detailed outline of everyone’s financial responsibilities and a “prenuptial agreement” providing for how someone withdraws, including security deposits, if any, how much written notice is required to leave and how jointly acquired equip ment will be divided. Consider what happens if the copier dies. The lawyer who owned the “paid for” copier may have been happy to accept a dime a page for com pensation but may not want to buy a new copier or sign a lengthy copier lease. The simple solution

PAPERWORK

Your office-sharing arrange ment, in most circumstances, requires a written agreement. This is because there are items you need the other officemates to include in their attorney-client agreements to protect you. Primarily, every client for every lawyer should be required to sign an attorney-client agreement that states something to the effect that the client is only contract ing with attorney Smith for this legal matter, and other lawyers at this address are not responsible for it. If you wish to make this even more prominent, make that provision a single-sentence para graph with a place for the client to initial. Review the contract’s other provisions about utilizing other attorneys to ensure consis tency. After all, if you wake up

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THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL