Attorney and consultant William Allcott has a workday that might make a schizophrenic scream. Virginia law prohibits lawyers from providing legal service when they don’t work specifically at a law firm. So that means Allcott bounces back and forth, juggling duties between two offices in the same building.

For example, when he works as a McGuireWoods lawyer at the firm’s Richmond headquarters, he uses one set of computer files and bills hours to the law firm. While acting as a consultant at McGuireWoods Consulting, he tracks those hours separately and is careful not to give clients legal advice. "When I’m working on a matter for the consulting firm, I tell clients that what they tell me won’t be privileged, even if it’s about public relations strategies dealing with lawsuits," he says.

Allcott’s predicament could be a harbinger of a major change in the legal and accounting professions. If Virginia attorneys agree, a shift in the rules would allow them to provide services to the public if they work for non-law firms — or multidisciplinary practices (MDPs). Common in other countries, MDPs could bring attorneys and accountants or other financial or business service providers together under one roof. The benefit: one-stop shopping for legal, financial, and consulting services. But it also opens a can of worms in terms of conflicting confidentiality and ethics rules governing the different professions.

The issue is on the front burner. In June a special joint commission of the Virginia State Bar and the Virginia Bar Association will make recommendations on MDPs to the bar counsel. What the recommendations will be is anyone’s guess. Virginia Bar Association’s ethics counsel James M. McCauley says consensus won’t be reached easily.

On the one hand, says Commission Chairman John Keith, a Fairfax attorney with Blankingship & Keith, attorneys are already working for non-law firms as counsel for corporations, government agencies, non -profits, and legal aid societies. But if they’re not practicing law, as those who work for accounting firms say, they’re no longer under the jurisdiction of the Virginia State Bar. Proponents argue that if you recognize multidisciplinary practices and create regulations for lawyers working in those practices, you eliminate the possibility of maverick attorneys practicing law while they say they’re not.

On the other side of the debate are the traditionalists who worry about the potential conflict for lawyers working in non-law firms and being forced to serve two masters. Accountants and attorneys have different rules regarding ethics, confidentiality, and conflicts of interest. Opponents urge lawyers to stand firm against market forces, "because if we allow it to be controlled or overwhelmed by market forces, we’re no longer practicing law. We’re just selling a commodity — legal products," McCauley explains. Keith worries about the long-term effect on the profession. "If one of the Big 5 accounting firms hires the head of the tax department of a major law firm, no client will suffer. But if a small, two-CPA firm hires a lawyer right out of law school, who’s going to teach that lawyer how to practice law? Law schools can’t teach it all; the apprenticeship part is important."

Already, accounting firms own the largest law firms in Europe. And the number of attorneys, primarily tax attorneys, employed by the Big 5 in the U.S. is growing. They don’t even publicize their credentials as lawyers. That’s part of the current problem, says Keith. "They have to say they’re practicing tax or consulting to fit within the existing framework. They’re living a lie," he says.

Attorneys have already ceded some turf to accountants, and they are wary of losing more ground. Accountants who have passed an exam have long been allowed to represent their clients in tax court, for example. "Practicing tax involves the application of legal skills," says the state bar’s McCauley. "CPAs can do it, and they’re allowed to do it. But when they get into projects like designing ERISA plans, health care compliance, and FCC and telecommunications work, they’re getting into areas where law firms had enjoyed exclusivity."

As accounting firms add services, they need more specialized employees. In a nutshell, "We’re looking for talent," says Larry Samuel, of Deloitte & Touche in Fairfax County and chairman of the Virginia Society of Certified Public Accounts. "Technology and globalization are impacting the way we practice. Clients are demanding faster service, decreased fees, increased competition, and they want to spend less of their time getting these services," he says. The Big 5 accounting firms have been thinking in global terms far longer than law firms, largely because of their size and worldwide presence.

Ownership of multidisciplinary practices is an area of contention. Virginia law requires that a firm advertising its public accounting services must be 51 percent-owned by CPAs. So unless CPAs are willing to relent on that point, lawyers would have to be the minority owners in a theoretical CPA/law practice. Currently, Virginia State Bar’s controlling rule says that attorneys cannot provide legal services to the public unless they’re in a firm where lawyers are majority owners.

Possible landmines dot the landscape for other multidisciplinary practices as well. For example, what if someone organizes a "family practice" firm including a family law attorney, an accountant to help with financial and tax issues and a social worker? Suppose a divorcing mom mentions, in the presence of all three professionals, that her new boyfriend hit her daughter. The attorney is obligated to keep that information confidential. The social worker is obligated to report it. Whose obligation wins out?

So what’s driving the multidisciplinary practice debate? Market demand, say proponents. Wouldn’t it be nice for business owners to get all their professional services in one place, the argument goes. One-stop shopping for legal, accounting, tax, regulatory, and public relations needs. But, for now, the argument remains theoretical since only four states have taken steps toward multidisciplinary practices. Fourteen have rejected the concept and 18, including Virginia, are still weighing the issue.

In January, the Illinois CPA Society, Legal Marketing Association, and Martindale-Hubbell, the legal publishing giant, tried to gauge market demand by surveying more than 2,000 business executives in the state. While 75 percent of the respondents expressed no fundamental objection to a partnership of their accountant and lawyer, only 20 percent thought such a partnership would be a true benefit.

There’s no doubt that law firms and accounting firms, separately or together, want to increase market share and services to their business clients. For example, McGuireWoods law firm has launched an extranet service for clients. It also is building an incubator for high-tech startups. Neither is a traditional legal service. And at McGuireWoods Consulting, the long anticipated market demand for their services has materialized. "It was market driven," says Allcott. "The law firm had been asked repeatedly for referrals to public relations firms who understood the litigation, legislative, and regulatory environment, but we had to go to Washington, D.C., and New York for those." Now about half of Allcott’s consulting work is for clients of other law firms. The two firms carrying the McGuireWoods name are "not a package deal," he emphasizes. "We have clients who don’t want a lawyer at all."

With adequate disclosure and thorough focus, Allcott feels he can do both jobs without compromising ethics. "It’s the best of both worlds."