N.Y. Lawyer Can’t Also Provide Wealth Management Services

A non-practicing New York lawyer who’s been working in wealth management for 20 years and now wants to open a law office and provide investment advisory services to law clients can’t ethically do so, the state bar said.

“The conflict between the legal and non-legal services is so severe that informed consent cannot cure it,” the bar’s ethics committee said in an opinion.

A state professional conduct rule “expressly allows” lawyers to provide legal and non-legal services to the same client, like lawyer-accounting services, the opinion said.

But some “dual practice conflicts” can’t be remedied with informed client consent because ...