Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar Ethics Opinions
Free plain-English summaries of legal ethics opinions issued by the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar, with full citations and source links on every page.
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Can a Maine lawyer pay a client's former non-lawyer Social Security advocate out of the lawyer's fee?
Not as a fee split. Rule 5.4 bars sharing fees with a non-lawyer, so the proper route is for the advocate to file a fee petition with the SSA; if that is not possible, the lawyer may refund part of th…
Can a Maine lawyer take a non-recourse loan from a litigation finance company to fund a contingency-fee case, repayable only if the case wins?
No. The opinion concludes a non-recourse litigation loan, repayable only if the lawyer recovers a fee and carrying a risk-based interest premium, amounts to sharing legal fees with a nonlawyer in viol…
If a Maine lawyer owns a title insurance company, can the lawyer refer a real estate client to it, and do the ethics rules govern the title company's work?
The referral is allowed, but if the lawyer represents the same client in the same transaction, disclosure alone does not exempt the title company's law-related services from the Code; full disclosure …
Can a lawyer provide bankruptcy services to clients as a salaried employee of a nonprofit credit-counseling corporation that is not a law firm?
No. The opinion concludes the arrangement violates the Bar Rules: it aids the unauthorized practice of law by a nonlawyer corporation, amounts to sharing legal fees with a nonlawyer, risks nonlawyer c…
If a lawyer is both 'of counsel' to a firm and a solo practitioner, do fees the firm pays for clients the lawyer brings in count as a fee division requiring client consent?
No, for the of-counsel work. The opinion concludes a bona fide 'of counsel' lawyer is treated like a partner or associate, so sharing fees on firm clients the lawyer develops is not a fee division req…
Can a lawyer hold herself out to the public as a 'referring attorney' who finds other lawyers for clients and collects a fee split, or is that an unauthorized lawyer referral service?
The opinion concluded it is an unauthorized referral service. A lawyer who principally holds herself out as making referrals operates a referral service that, under the Maine Bar Rules, must be sponso…
Can a divorce lawyer take a contingent referral fee for sending the client's separate civil-rights claim to another lawyer?
The opinion concluded the referral fee is permissible because the civil-rights claim is separate from procuring the divorce, but only if the lawyer meets the strict disclosure, fairness, and written-c…
Can a lawyer form a partnership with a non-lawyer in a firm that offers only mediation services?
The opinion concluded yes; because mediation creates no lawyer-client relationship it is not the practice of law under the no-partnership rule, so neither the partnership nor the fee-splitting it invo…
If a former-client conflict bars a lawyer from taking a case, can she still refer it out and share in the other lawyer's fee?
The opinion concluded no; a compensated referral is itself representation in the matter, so the same former-client conflict that bars the case bars sharing the referred lawyer's fee.
May a lawyer accept a contingent-fee client referred by an independent nonlawyer paralegal advisor who has a separate contract for 17% of the client's recovery?
The opinion concluded yes on these facts; if the lawyer and the advisor are genuinely independent with no cooperative arrangement, the lawyer's own customary contingent fee is not improper, and there …
May a lawyer pay a marketing company that runs seminars, and how the company is compensated, when attendees also get a private consultation with the lawyer?
The opinion concluded paying the marketer per attendee is permitted as public communication, but paying it based on the number of private consultations the lawyer books violates the rule against payin…
May a lawyer who expects to testify as a witness refer the case to other counsel and still take a share of the contingent fee?
The opinion concluded no; a lawyer likely to be called as a witness may not accept employment in the case, and taking a contingent fee while testifying makes the fee an improper payment to a witness c…
Can a lawyer who refers a case and does no further work still collect a share of the contingent fee?
The opinion concluded yes; Maine's fee-division rule was deliberately written to drop the 'proportion to services and responsibility' requirement, so a pure referral split is permitted if the client c…
May a lawyer collect a bar referral service's fee from the client and pay the service's own fee without violating the fee-sharing rule?
The opinion concluded the fees are permitted; collecting the referral service's client fee is not sharing a legal fee, and paying the service's own fee is expressly allowed for a bar-operated referral…
Can lawyers set up a privately owned, for-profit lawyer referral service funded by fees from participating attorneys or a split of referred-case fees?
The opinion concluded the proposed privately operated referral service violated both the rule allowing referral payments only to a bar-association service and the rule on fee division, so participatio…
Can lawyers and an accountant co-own a corporation that markets combined legal and financial services to clients?
The opinion concluded the proposed venture would violate Rule 3.2(a)(2), because a business that holds out lawyers as providing legal services may not share proprietorship with non-lawyers, whether or…
Can a lawyer agree to pay a public interest organization a percentage of court-awarded attorney's fees on cases it refers?
The opinion concluded that an agreement to pay a non-lawyer public interest organization a percentage of the lawyer's court-awarded fees is prohibited fee splitting with a non-lawyer under Rule 3.3(e)…
Can a lawyer who collects a debt referred by a collection agency pay the agency a share of what is collected?
The opinion concluded that paying the collection agency its own client-authorized commission, separate from the lawyer's legal fee, is not prohibited fee sharing with a non-lawyer; what the rules forb…
Can a law firm pay its non-lawyer secretaries quarterly bonuses out of firm profits, on top of salary, without that counting as improper fee-sharing with non-lawyers?
The opinion concluded that an incentive compensation plan paying lay employees a share of firm profits on top of a fixed salary does not constitute improper sharing of legal fees under Maine Bar Rule …
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Legal ethics opinions from the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar interpret the rules of professional conduct for working lawyers, in response to inquiries from members and committees. They are not binding like court discipline decisions, but courts and discipline boards treat formal opinions as substantial guidance on how the rules apply. Every opinion above has a plain-English question and short answer, plus a link to the original source on the bar's site.