VIEWPOINTS : ONE-STOP LAW FIRMS : Attorneys Could Tie In With Stock Brokers, PR Firms to Serve Clients Better

Banks and stock brokerages often pitch themselves as one-stop locations for a customer’s every financial need. The legal profession is starting to put its own spin on one-stop shopping. As it does, the public will benefit.

The law firm of the future may be tied to accounting firms, real estate brokerages, investment bankers or development companies. Or it may more explicitly acknowledge non-legal services being performed by a lawyer.

Some firms are already trying variations of these arrangements. Arnold & Porter, Washington’s largest law firm, offers troubled savings and loans the services of an affiliated company to reorganize operations. Another affiliate specializes in developing low-cost housing for nonprofit clients such as universities.

Or take the New York lawyer who left practice five years ago to write novels and recently returned to his firm. He didn’t resume his corporate practice where he left off. Instead, he operates a private investment banking unit for the firm’s clients who prefer to work with him rather than with someone from a brokerage firm.

For entertainment or sports figures, a lawyer can provide the one and only stop. Some lawyers serve as business managers, personal managers and, if licensed to do so, talent agents. Similarly, a wills and trusts lawyer can double as a real estate agent to dispose of real property left to an estate he represents.

In Great Britain, the national law societies are taking the concept one step further. They’re considering multidisciplinary arrangements to allow accountants and lawyers to form mixed partnerships, a practice forbidden under California law. As one English solicitor put it, “If we go it alone, we shall lose business to the market-oriented multidisciplinary partnerships of the sort the accountants are putting together.”

The first steps here might include locating compatible services in the same building or corridor. An accountant and lawyer would remain separate entities legally. But the client would get a single bill and consider them part of a team, much as a patient links the surgeon and the radiologist, even though their services are separate.

These arrangements could lead to broader consumer approaches. A “business maintenance organization” could develop along the lines of a health maintenance organization. A single premium might cover all legal, accounting, escrow and loan activities of an individual.

The contact point for the client would be through the organization, not the individual provider. Group legal services have been made available through labor and college student organizations. The next step would be to expand the range of services afforded to such groups and then have others consider the package as an employee benefit in the way that dental and eye care have been added to group health plans.

Encouraging the formation of “Jones & Smith, Attorneys and Accountants” would acknowledge the close links in the minds of the public between these two separately licensed services. Problems overlap, so solutions should, too.

In a host of business areas, linking different services is essential. A company seeking to raise funds from capital markets needs the services of a lawyer, accountant, economist, appraiser and public relations specialist. A law firm that can provide all of these services provides a real service. And by billing all the services directly, it makes relationships explicit that may not have been apparent to a client.

And a lawyer who acts as a rock star’s personal manager or a start-up company’s investment banker can save a client money. Even $200 hourly fees can look like a good deal compared to the percentages that managers and investment bankers take out of deals.

Mixing professions also reminds us that some “lawyer only” functions are so only because of law or tradition. In California, it’s the exception rather than the rule to use a lawyer’s services when buying a house. In New York, the reverse is true. Substituting a non-lawyer can save money.

Merging the lawyer’s role with other lines of work or permitting formal associations with other businesses poses potential problems, however. Lawyers are subject to professional standards of conduct different from those affecting accountants, talent agents or PR experts.

While a lawyer does not violate the canons of ethics by pursuing other businesses, the line between them must be clear to the client. Referring a problem to a capital formation specialist on another floor of the building may solve the problem; doubling up the tasks in the one lawyer’s office may not.

Also, formal affiliations remove the objectivity that an independent professional can bring to the work of another. A tax lawyer reviewing the work of an auditor may be less exacting if the auditors share the same coffee machines.

Further, the confidentiality that the law provides for communications between a lawyer and a client doesn’t extend to stock brokers, for instance. But if a lawyer and broker share information, it could strip the protective cloak of the law from a client’s affairs.

Does a profession caught between Professor Kingsfield of “Paper Chase” and Arnie Becker of “L.A. Law” need more image confusion? One-stop law firms might further shake up an already shaken discipline.

Merger mania at the high end of the profession and franchised clinics at the low end have removed much of the profession’s claim to a higher calling. The public’s image of the lawyer is far from Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” More likely, it’s Attack Us and Filch--law as a ravenous trade, not lofty profession.

Jokes about lawyers and car skid marks notwithstanding, people turn to them when they’re in trouble or need help with complex business matters. But law alone may not be the sole service needed. So long as they stay within ethical bounds established for rendering legal services, lawyers better serve clients when they can open a wider umbrella.