Bar members debate multidisciplinary practices.

YLD President Greg Coleman asked: If lawyers are working for insurance companies and things go wrong, how will it affect their independent judgment?

Michael Nachwalter, a past Board of Governors member now heading up a subcommittee studying multidisciplinary practices, asked: If you tinker with the core values of the legal profession, what are the possible consequences?

Would Florida's lawyers embrace multidisciplinary practices if the lawyer stayed in control of the partnership with nonlawyers?, posed Miami's Sherwin Simmons, who heads an American Bar Association committee on MDPs.

What happens when accounting firms which own law practices end up influencing who becomes a judge, cautioned John Cardillo, a member of the Board of Governors.

Since nonlawyers are already delivering services lawyers do much more efficiently, why not broaden carve-outs and allow attorneys to compete, suggested Richard Berkowitz, both an attorney and accountant.

And since mutlidisciplinary practices are already "creeping up on us," we shouldn't waste our time and money trying to stop it, but how to deal with it, advised Syd Traum.

Those were among the comments and concerns aired when about 70 people gathered at a town hall meeting on multidisciplinary practices, during the Bar's Midyear Meeting in Miami on January 12.

As Richard Gilbert, co-chair of the Special Committee on Multidisciplinary Practice and Ancillary Business, told the town hall participants: "There is a lot of emotion and fear on both sides."

And that became clear as the debate continued on whether lawyers should forge partnerships with nonlawyers and share fees.

Charlie Robinson, a member of the "pro subcommittee," began by showing a picture of mountains in a rear-view mirror of a car.

"If you take the con position, then your objective is the mountains and you're driving in reverse through the rear-view mirror. Stay with the way things have always been done and ignore the huge amount of evidence we have that is taking us to the future, however it is going to take us, whether we like it or not."

And though Robinson admitted "the road ahead isn't all that smooth, either," he said the "pro-MDP" position believes: "The real question we have to deal with is: Will the legal profession reinvent itself in order to provide highly valued 21st century services to the 21st century client?"

A lot of forces are impacting the profession, Robinson outlined, including competition from nonlawyers.

"With virtually...