The Oklahoma Bar Journal September 2022

confidentiality. Before we cover some of these concerns, let’s discuss a broad office confidentiality policy. To oversimplify, there are two broad approaches. You can build walls between the practices so nothing is shared between them and then determine exceptions as needed ( e.g. , letting the in-office receptionist know whom to expect that day.) Or you can decide that even though the arrangement is not a partnership, it is a better arrange ment not to take cases in opposition or conflict with each other. This would require a conflict-checking protocol like that used by any law firm. To me, there are many reasons not to take matters in direct oppo sition to your officemates. Lawyers can sometimes get emotionally involved in litigation, and it’s best to avoid that with officemates. As one long-term office sharer remarked to the OBA Office of Ethics Counsel, “We don’t take cases against each other. Too much potential for things to get messy.” But the main reason to me is the Murphy’s Law hypothetical situ ation, where lawyers do not share schedules. Just imagine two law yers scheduling pretrial conference preparation with opposing parties in a marital dissolution case at the same time. What if both lawyers are then delayed, and the two clients spend a lot of time in your waiting room glowering at each other? It is quite possible that some one’s trust in their lawyer could be damaged, and/or a client could decide to fire their lawyer just over the waiting room situation. The lawyers’ agreement will also need to address walk-in clients and how they are assigned a lawyer. Any method of oper ation has the potential for chal lenges. The walk-in client who just showed up needing a lawyer – any lawyer – may turn out to have

a message and their call is not returned for a few hours, they may already have secured a lawyer. Sometimes there are other con siderations. For example, if only one lawyer in the office-sharing arrangement practices criminal law, those inquiries should go to that lawyer. As we examine the possibilities, the idea of each lawyer having a separate phone number (with a vir tual reception service as a backup when they cannot answer the phone) becomes more appealing. Sharing staff, such as legal assistants and secretaries, increases the complexity. It can be challenging for two partners in a law firm to share a secretary or paralegal, and many a law firm associate has felt that they were second-class citizens compared to the partners as to how staff handled their assignments. But in those large-firm situa tions, everyone is still theoretically focused on generating revenue for the firm, while the lawyers in an office sharing arrangement are all focused on their individual bot tom lines. While I appreciate that many lawyers have made these sit uations work well for years, there will be growing pains initially setting this up, particularly if the staff person has a primary role in document creation. CONFIDENTIALITY CONCERNS When a client retains a law firm, all those working in the firm are understood to have access to the client’s confidential information. (A law firm may limit access for administrative reasons.) With an office-sharing situation, as suggested above, the clients sign a contract with only one individ ual lawyer instead of a firm. So shared resources and staff are not assumed but must be examined with an eye toward guarding client

If you have a cleaning ser vice for the office, most likely that should be a shared expense. Someone should be responsible for making sure the cleaning crew understands they are not to read any documents they may come across or discuss anything they have seen in the law firm with outsiders. But there’s no apparent business or ethical reason not to split the cost of law office cleaning. But once you get past the shared cleaning services, things are more complicated. What about the office recep tionist? The traditional role of the in-office receptionist is not usually problematic. Welcoming individu als, offering them a seat or per haps refreshments and letting the lawyer know their appointment has arrived is routine. Any ques tion the client might ask about the legal matter can be answered with, “Ask your lawyer about that in the meeting.” But the policies regarding the person who answers the phones can be more challenging. Clients or potential clients calling a law firm’s phone number may blurt out confidential information to the person who answers the phone. So that must be addressed with a pol icy and training about the nature of the office sharing arrangement. If three or four lawyers all want a shared receptionist to answer indi vidual phone lines with different greetings, this could be too chal lenging for many. A shared phone line will pres ent the additional challenge of who gets the call from a potential new client wanting to talk with a lawyer, any lawyer. Some sort of shared rotation should be estab lished. To me, the first rule should be if only one lawyer is available to take a call immediately, they get the potential client inquiry simply because if the caller leaves

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THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL