ACC Challenges New Mexico In-House Counsel Rules

The New Mexico Supreme Court shouldn?t be gambling with a legal client?s services, said the Association of Corporate Counsel in a comment letter [PDF] sent to Chief Justice Petra Jimenez Maes last week.

The letter urges the court to pass new rules removing restrictive bar admission standards for experienced lawyers from outside the state, if the other state reciprocates. But the letter goes further than the proposed rules, arguing for an end to reciprocity requirements.

The letter commends the proposal for looking ?beyond state borders. But requiring reciprocity is a step in the wrong direction.?

The current proposal ?would effectively subject clients? needs to a roulette wheel of reciprocity, with everything riding on where the lawyer?s license happens to come from,? the letter states.

ACC advocates nationally to authorize the cross-border practice of competent lawyers who are in good standing in their home jurisdictions. The issue is especially important to in-house counsel whose corporate businesses increasingly cross state and national boundaries.

Amar Sarwal, ACC?s vice president and chief legal strategist, issued a statement criticizing the current New Mexico rules.

?Requiring experienced lawyers from other states to retake the bar exam in order to practice in New Mexico privileges the parochial interests of local lawyers, rather than those of the clients they ostensibly serve,? Sarwal said.

?In fact, the proposal's reciprocity requirement also needlessly benefits lawyers alone, while depriving clients of their experienced counsel of choice,? he added.

Currently in New Mexico, unlike a majority of U.S. jurisdictions, attorneys cannot gain admission to practice law by motion or under any form of reciprocity with other states. Likewise, New Mexico attorneys applying in other states are not allowed similar access to admission without passing the bar exam.

?Choice of counsel of clients and prospective clients is unnecessarily restricted,? states the New Mexico proposal [PDF]. ?The reality of transboundary law practice is not served by New Mexico?s lack of admission by motion.?

The proposal goes on to state that requiring all out-of-state attorneys to sit for the bar exam is ?a relic and outdated.?

But the ACC letter contends that reciprocity doesn?t fix the problem. ?Instead, reciprocity subjects the needs of clients to the whims of state-to-state diplomacy. A more open admission system serves clients better,? it says.

The letter was signed by Sarwal, and by ACC senior counsel Evan Schultz, who is also the group?s director of advocacy.

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