The Ethics of Alternative Business Structures and Managed Services Organizations

Arizona, Utah, and Puerto Rico have authorized non-lawyer ownership of law firms through Alternative Business Structures, while California, New York, and South Carolina permit Managed Services Organizations to embed deep into firm operations without crossing the formal ABS line — and the ethics opinions are not converging. Lawyers in prohibition jurisdictions are already taking referrals, sharing co-counsel arrangements, and signing MSO contracts with entities operating lawfully elsewhere, often without recognizing the conflict, fee-splitting, and unauthorized-practice exposure they have created. This program maps the structural difference between ABS and MSO models, walks through the lawyer-participation pathways — referrals, co-counsel, MSO contractual terms subject to negotiation — and compares the positions of Arizona, Utah, Puerto Rico, California, New York, and South Carolina alongside the recent ethics opinions driving them, including Nathan Crystal’s forthcoming article “ABS? or MSO?” Attendees will be able to evaluate a proposed ABS or MSO arrangement against their own jurisdiction’s rules and negotiate contract terms that withstand ethics scrutiny.