Massachusetts Rule of Professional Conduct 5.6 prohibits non-competition agreements for attorneys, and provides in part: “A lawyer shall not participate in offering or making . . . a partnership or employment agreement that restricts the right of a lawyer to practice after termination of the relationship, except an agreement concerning benefits upon retirement. . . .” The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently held that a law partnership agreement imposing financial consequences on all partners voluntarily withdrawing from the partnership, whether they compete with their prior firm or not, does not violate this rule.

In the case of Pierce & others v. Morrison Mahoney, LLP, the Supreme Judicial Court evaluated claims of former Morrison Mahoney partners that their partnership agreement’s amended separation clause violated Rule 5.6 because it provided that partners voluntarily leaving the partnership forfeited certain financial benefits if they departed before having served for 20 years as a partner or after having attained the age of sixty. Originally, the clause had restricted the financial benefits to partners who did not compete with the firm, but the Supreme Judicial Court held in a prior case concerning the same law firm that such a non-competitive restriction was against the public policy in favor of allowing clients to retain an attorney of their choosing and thus violated Rule 5.6. The firm revised the clause in response to the prior case.

Despite this revision, several partners who had left the firm challenged it as violating Rule 5.6, in that it worked a de facto constraint on competition. The Supreme Judicial Court, however, rejected that argument, noting that the revised policy did not provide any disincentive in taking a particular client. That the law firm had created an appropriate incentive for its partners to stay with the firm until they turned 60 or had been partners for 20 years did not violate public policy, according to the Supreme Judicial Court, and it rejected the claims of the former partners.

This case demonstrates that although attorney non-competition agreements remain against public policy, the purpose of that policy is to promote unfettered client access to attorneys, not, as the Supreme Judicial Court put it, to “protect lawyer mobility.” Law firms employing similar restrictions should take care that they are applied across the board to all partners leaving the firm, not just ones that compete with it. In that manner, incentive programs like the one employed by Morrison Mahoney will survive judicial scrutiny, at least in Massachusetts.