James M. McCauley *
The growing ease of interstate and international travel, the advancements in electronic communications and the resulting globalization of economic activity have made it ever more necessary for lawyers to expand the geographic scope of their practices. Both law firms and their clients increasingly conduct business on a nationwide and even worldwide scale. As the Commission on Multijurisdictional Practice recognized in 2002, “the geographic scope of a lawyer‘s practice must be adequate to enable the lawyer to serve the legal needs of clients in a national and global economy.” Thus lawyers need to be more able than previously to practice in multiple jurisdictions. To this end, the Supreme Court of Virginia adopted new provisions to permit limited practice by foreign lawyers in the Commonwealth. These provisions included the adoption of a foreign legal consultant rule for lawyers admitted to practice in a foreign nation and a temporary practice rule for lawyers admitted in a foreign country or in a territory or state in the United States other than Virginia.
*Ethics Counsel, Virginia State Bar. J.D., 1982, University of Richmond School of Law; B.A., 1978, James Madison University.