DC Bar: Firms Have No Hold on Their Former Lawyers

Non-competes are generally regarded as acceptable for most professionals -- except lawyers.

Now an ethics opinion from the D.C. Bar , which oversees professional responsibility for lawyers practicing in the nation’s capital, has clarified that a law firm can’t try to limit a departing lawyer’s new practice.

And that’s good news for the many lawyers in Washington who currently are contemplating job changes.

Ethics Opinion 368, published earlier this month, found that a “law firm may not provide for or impose liquidated damages,” set before a departure is announced, on a lawyer who later competes with the firm. The decision ...