This one has been confusing to me, but I hope I now have it right. After a long process, the State Bar of California, acting initially through a Rules Revision Commission, has drafted about 70 new ethics rules, based upon the ABA's Model Rules. (Previously, California's ethics rules have not been based on the ABA Code or Rules.)
Although that large number of rules has been approved through the highest level of the State Bar (i.e., the Board of Governors), at this time only six rules have been submitted to the Supreme Court of California for immediate consideration. Many of us (or least me) had thought that the bulk of rules had been submitted months ago. In fact, there has been a long delay devising a format for the various materials that will accompany the rules being submitted to the Court and, as a sort-of test case, six rules are being submitted so that the high court can decide if it likes the formatting of the submissions. The six rules are the Purpose and Scope rule (1.0) and the five 7.x rules that deal with advertising, communications, etc. If the format works, then the remaining rules will eventually be submitted to the court. Story here. Hope that's clear. And if I've got it wrong, please leave a comment below!
Last we heard, California will adopt a reporting rule about other lawyers and judges; will have an aspirational pro bono rule; will not have a rule on imputation (what we in California call "vicarious" disqualification); and in general will have lots of ABA-based rules on topics as to which California's rules have long been silent. And, by the way, the proposed 1.6 should finally lay to rest that oft-heard claim that California has only one exception to the duty of confidentiality (i.e., to prevent a crime leading to death or substantial bodily harm). California case law has long recognized other exceptions (e.g., in disputes between clients and lawyers) and the proposed rule would formally recognize them.
As for advance waivers, the proposed rule 1.7 has a comment 22 that is, in my view, a reasonable statement of when advance waivers should be enforceable. As I've argued previously, courts should tacitly insist that corporate clients contract around the uncertainties surrounding the corporate affiliate conflicts problem and should enforce advance waivers when the client is a corporation that employs its own lawyer.
Proposed rules can be accessed at the bottom of this page.