Executive Director’s Message by Karen A. Gould New VSB Offices; New and Amended Rules VSB New Headquarters By the time this column is published in the December Virginia Lawyer , the Virginia State Bar should have executed a ten-year lease with the owner of the Bank of America building in down-town Richmond, at 1111 E. Main St. The bar’s offices will be on the seventh floor of the building, with additional office space on the sixth floor. The lease also includes two five-year optio ns to extend the lease term. The bar has been located in its present office space, 707 E. Main St., since 1992. 1996. New Admission Without Examination Rule (Reciprocity) By order entered November 1, 2013, the Supreme Court of Virginia has adopted, effective February 1, 2014, a new Rule 1A:1, addressing admission to the Virginia bar without examina-tion (often called “admission on motion”). Although the old and n ew rules are similar in many respects, there are several significant differences. To continue encouraging other states to grant the same privilege to Virginia lawyers, the Court has retained the requirement that only lawyers who are admitted in jurisdic-tions that also admit Virginia lawyers without examination ( i.e ., “reciprocal” jurisdictions) are eligible for admission on motion in Virginia. The new rule requires that admission to the bar of the reciprocal jurisdiction must have been by examination. Admission on motion is based on the premise that passage of a reciprocal state’s bar exam combined with the experience gained over the course of several years of recent successful law practice may be accepted in place of a second bar exam as evidence of one’s legal knowledge and ability. The mini-mum practice re quirement has been reduced from five of the last seven years under the old rule to three of the last five years. New requirements for twelve hours of approved instruction on Virginia substantive law and/or pro-cedure and familiarity with the Virginia Rules of Professional Conduct have been added. Unchanged is the statutory requirement of a minimum of five years’ bar admission. Persons applying for admission on motion must still establish their good character and fitness to practice law in Virginia. In what is perhaps the most signif-icant change, the new rule drops the old rule’s requirement that one admit-ted on motion commit to practice full-time in Virginia; and lawyers admitted on motion, including those who have been admitted under the old rule, are no longer subject to potential license revocation if they move out of state or change their status. Lawyers admitted on motion may change their member-ship status under the applicable mem-bership rules in the same manner as lawyers admitted by examination. The Supreme Court of Virginia will be issuing revised regulations con-sistent with the provisions of new Rule 1A:1, and the Board of Bar Examiners is preparing new application forms. The new regulations a nd the applica-tion forms will be available in January on the board’s website, and the board will begin accepting applications under the new rule on February 1, 2014. Also on November 1, 2013, the Court entered an order effective immediately amending Rules of Professional Conduct 1.11, 1.15 and 5.4. Rule of Professional Conduct 1.11 One change to RPC 1.11 is cosmetic: it moved the definition of “confidenti al government information” from section (g) to section (c), which is the only place in the rule that the term is used. The second change to Rule 1.11 added a provision to section (d), allowing the conflict for a lawyer who is currently in government service to be waived with consent from the private client and the appropriate government agency. This provision parallels section (b), which allows for informed consent to con-flicts created by a lawyer’s move from government service to private practice. The third change to RPC 1.11 was the adoption of American Bar Association Model Rule Comment 3, which explains why paragraphs (b) and (d) are not limited to situations in which a lawyer would be adverse to her former client, but rather apply to any matter in which the lawyer participated person-ally and substantia lly prior to her move from government to private employ-ment or vice versa. Rule 1.11 now reads as follows: RULE 1.11 Special Conflicts of Interest for Former and Current Government Officers and Employees (a) A lawyer who holds public office shall not: (1) use the public position to obtain, or attempt to obtain, a 10 VIRGINIA LAWYER | December 2013 | Vol. 62 www.vsb.org