Connecticut Rules of Professional Conduct (Connecticut Practice Book) 5.4: Professional independence: no fee sharing with nonlawyers, no nonlawyer partnership or ownership, no outside direction of judgement

What does 5.4 require?

Legal fees may not be shared with nonlawyers, apart from four situations: an agreement that money will be paid over a reasonable period after a lawyer's death to the estate or to named people; payment of the agreed purchase price under Rule 1.17 to the estate or representative of a lawyer who is disabled, deceased or has disappeared; letting nonlawyer staff take part in a compensation or retirement scheme even one built on profit-sharing; and Connecticut's allowance for sharing a court-awarded or settlement fee with a nonprofit that employed, retained or recommended the lawyer. A lawyer may not go into partnership with a nonlawyer where any of the partnership's activities amount to practising law, may not let anyone who recommends, employs or pays for the lawyer's services to another person direct or regulate the lawyer's professional judgement, and may not practise through a for-profit professional corporation or association in which a nonlawyer owns any interest (beyond a fiduciary briefly holding a lawyer's stock), holds office as a director or officer or an equivalent position, or has the right to direct or control a lawyer's professional judgement.