Trusts and Estates
Ca. Trs. & Estates Quarterly Volume 12, Issue 2, Summer 2006
Content
- A Charitable Catch-22: Standing For Private Attorney General Actions In California
- Crossed Circuits On Estate Tax Deductibility of Disputed or Contingent Claims
- Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: a Legislative Proposal For Collateral Estoppel of Substituted Judgment Orders
- The Fiduciary's Conflict: One Lawyer or Two?
- Risky Business: Family Business Succession and the Rules of Professional Conduct
RISKY BUSINESS: FAMILY BUSINESS SUCCESSION AND THE RULES OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT
By John W. Ambrecht, Esq.* and Elyce Pike, Ph.D.**
I. INTRODUCTION
Ironically, the California Rules of Professional Conduct1 ("CRPC" or "Rules") actually tend to hinder rather than help the transfer of a family business from one generation to the next. This becomes apparent if you compare conduct under those Rules to the "best practices" developed by other professionals in the family business succession field. Of course, hindering rather than assisting the succession process is hardly the purpose of the Rules, but it is often the effect.
To frame this discussion we begin with the fact that Rule 1-100 (A) provides in part as follows: