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Do people take some form agreements for personal use when moving to a new firm? I'm about to lateral and wanted to see what documents I'm allowed to take with me and the best way to do so (people did this all the time when I was in consulting). Obviously don't want to break any ethics or confi rules.

No, you absolutely cannot do that.

(everyone does it though)

Thanks. Is this pretty much everyone's experience? Just want to make sure it's common practice. Willing to anonymize everything if that makes a difference.

The new firm is going to have its preferred forms. I don't think it would even be all that helpful.

If you do choose to do this, you definitely need to anonymize your forms.

But I would be very careful. My old firm had a second year associate leave and download several form documents and checklists and other stuff and emailed them to himself and some on a flashdrive. When he left the IT dept. and loss prevention group apparently does scans, and they saw that in the month leading up to when he was leaving he had downloaded a bunch of forms and they sent him a nasty letter demanding that he certify he destoryed all records in his possession, confirm he hasn't saved any other firm documents anywhere, etc. I think they threatened to contact his new job, but more a threat really. Some of these were basic forms that are not really a big deal and a few were ones that were pretty custom or took a lot of specialist input and would be valuable in that sense. It def shook him and one hundred percent burned all of the goodwill and bridges he had left at the firm.

Plus, your new firm will have partners that have preferred forms and styles and whatnot so I cant imagine that your old forms will be much use.

Thanks all. Guess I might just take the generic ones. Maybe even a new doc with some good language I've drafted over the past few years. I've definitely heard laterals in our firm refer to docs/language from their old firms and figured it was standard practice.

lolwutpar wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 13, 2021 1:55 pm

No, you absolutely cannot do that.

(everyone does it though)

Agree with both. I've not heard of IT scanning computers/emails of departing attorneys except when they leave on bad terms (partners taking clients, etc.). But maybe some firms do it routinely.

If it's something generic I don't think there's much value, but even though the new firm will have their preferred forms, there are tons of docs I've worked on with helpful language for unique situations. It's not vital that you bring them, could be helpful, but not the end of the world if you decide not to.