Ethics

I'm on a 20/20 working group charged, among other things, with dealing with issues that arise from the lack of uniformity of ethics rules among  US (not to mention foreign) jurisdictions. 

As we know, the rules largely imagine a single prototype of client and the rules are the rules for all clients, although "sophisticated" clients are treated differently in limited circumstances. One such circumstance is the ability to waive conflicts or define what will even be a conflict and what will not.  

But aside from saying that a sophisticated client is anyone counseled independently on the matter, it is a bit of a challenge to define the term in a way a lawyer can feel secure.

Let's say - I know it's counterfactual - that the Fortune 500 (or 1000) and the AmLaw 200 all got together and wrote their own uniform conflict and conflict waiver rules and all the corporate parties agreed that they would govern their attorney-client relationships going forward in so far as the rules allowed informed client consent to such an arrangement, which they largely do.

You'd need all or nearly all to get any to sign, but assume it may be feasible.

This is an example of private ordering around the court rules on a wholesale level. The clients and lawyers will then be able to predict that wherever a problem arises, the controlling conflicts rules would be those in the document not those in the particular jurisdiction. Any problem?