February 2000

Board Endorses Multidisciplinary Practices

The NYSSCPA board of directors voted on February 4 to support the establishment of multidisciplinary practices--firms where CPAs, lawyers, or other professionals partner or share fees.

Specifically, the board endorsed the recommendation of the Society's multidisciplinary practice team that states, "The MDP team recommends that the Society support the development of a regulatory framework that better serves the public in an environment permitting multidisciplinary practice among CPAs, lawyers, and other professionals."

Society Director and MDP team member Marshall Asche presented the team's report, which focuses specifically on MDPs with CPAs and attorneys. While agreeing with its content, the board instructed the team to broaden the report's scope to include additional disciplines.

"Currently our clients are limited in the way they receive professional services," Asche said. "MDPs offer the likelihood of more efficient delivery of services."

The report notes that MDPs face regulatory hurdles and the accounting and legal professions' ethics codes contain some incompatibilities that need reconciliation.

"Both CPAs and attorneys have sophisticated codes of ethics and highly developed senses of what constitutes ethical behavior," MDP team member Frank Nusspickel said. "But both ethics codes contain some anachronisms which may no longer be necessary to serve the public and which if brought up to date would open the door to MDPs."

For more information about MDPs, contact NYSSCPA Director of Ethics and Regulation Ann Spaulding, (212) 719-8348, (800) 633-6320, or aspaulding@nysscpa.org, or Society Counsel James A. Woehlke at (212) 719-8347, (800) 633-6320, or jwoehlke@nysscpa.org. See also page 1 of the January issue of The Trusted Professional and a special area of http://www.nysscpa.org now under construction to address this issue. *