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  • InsideTrack
  • May 20, 2015

    Ethical Dilemmas: Satellite Offices and Advertising – Is Shared Space a Firm?

    Aviva Meridian Kaiser

    May 20, 2015 – Is it an office or a client meeting location? Depending on the circumstances, it may be misleading, and therefore improper under SCR 20:7.1 for a lawyer to list a rented, shared office space as his or her “law office” on letterhead or other public communications.

    Question

    I have my law office in one county, but I have clients in several other counties. Because it is inconvenient or difficult for my some of my clients to come to my office, I use shared, nonexclusive office space, which I rent in two other counties, to meet with those clients. May I list these shared spaces as law offices on my letterhead and in other advertising?

    Answer

    A shared, nonexclusive office space that is advertised as a location of the firm must be an office where the lawyer provides legal services.1 A lawyer may not list alternative or rented office spaces in public communications “for the purpose of misleading prospective clients into believing that the lawyer has a more geographically diverse practice and/or more firm resources than is actually the case.”2

    Aviva KaiserAviva Meridian Kaiser is assistant ethics counsel with the State Bar of Wisconsin. Reach her by email.

    SCR 20:7.1, which governs communications concerning a lawyer's services, prohibits a lawyer from making “a false or misleading communication about the lawyer or the lawyer's services.”

    A communication is false or misleading if it “contains a material misrepresentation of fact or law, or omits a fact necessary to make the statement considered as a whole not materially misleading.” Even truthful statements are prohibited by this Rule if they are misleading. ABA Comment [2], which follows this Rule, provides guidance: a “truthful statement is misleading if it omits a fact necessary to make the lawyer's communication considered as a whole not materially misleading.”

    Depending on the circumstances, it may be misleading, and therefore improper under SCR 20:7.1 for a lawyer to list a rented, shared office space as his or her “law office” on letterhead or other public communications.

    The factors to consider in determining whether a lawyer may properly advertise the rented, shared space as a firm office include the frequency with which the lawyer uses the space, whether nonlawyers also use the space, and whether signage indicates that the space is used as a law office.3

    To advertise an as-needed meeting room rental space as an office would certainly be misleading. For example, a lawyer was publicly reprimanded for representing that his firm had at least six offices within Virginia, when in fact he had a single office, with the other five addresses being unstaffed spaces, some in executive office suites shared with other entities on an as-needed reservation basis. As part of the discipline, the lawyer agreed to revise his website to identify these other spaces as “client meeting locations.”4

    Endnotes

    1 Virginia Legal Ethics Opinion 1872 (2013) at 3.

    2 Virginia Legal Ethics Opinion 1872 at 3-4.

    3 Id. at 3-4.

    4 Virginia State Bar ex rel. Second District Committee v. Sriskandarajah, CL 2012-4137 (VSB Docket No. 10-022-081527) (2012).


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