ALBANY — Governor Spitzer will have a stronger role in enforcing rules on lobbyists and other ethics-related issues than any recent chief executive in Albany under an agreement announced yesterday. But even as the governor was celebrating, the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, in an interview with The New York Sun, defended his relationship with a law firm specializing in tort cases. Mr. Silver said his clients were individuals, such as an injured pedestrian from Connecticut, and insisted that none of them has business before the state.

After a round of closed-door talks Tuesday, Mr. Silver, the majority leader of the Senate, Joseph Bruno, and Mr. Spitzer emerged to announce the signing of a bill that tightens several ethics rules and establishes a single agency under Mr. Spitzer’s grasp that keeps watch over executive employees and lobbyists.

Among other changes, the new laws prohibit lobbyists from giving any gifts to public officials, from meals to travel expenses and lodging. The gift ban extends even to those who are not registered as lobbyists but whose largess could be interpreted as trying to influence an official. The leaders also agreed to a new policy to discourage nepotism in hiring, prohibit former legislative staff from lobbying lawmakers for two years after leaving office, and quadruple the civil penalty for an ethics violation to $40,000.

Mr. Spitzer, who is looking to make an early mark as governor to restore Albany’s reputation, hailed the ethics agreement as a “dramatic, significant, fundamental step forward in the way ethics will be enforced.” He compared it to other ethical watershed moments in the Capitol building, such as the passage of the Moreland Act in 1907, which gave governors subpoena power.

But one sensitive issue untouched by the laws is financial disclosure requirements of lawmakers. Under the new laws, lawmakers are still permitted to shield from public view the value of their outside sources of income and details of their work, such as the names of clients and associates.

Pressure on lawmakers to open their books has been building since Mr. Bruno announced late last year that he was a subject of a federal probe involving his private consulting firm, which he operates out of his home. Mr. Silver’s own critics have urged him to release the names of his clients to assure the public there’s no conflict of interest between his work for the law firm and his job as speaker.

Mr. Silver, in a sit-down interview with the Sun, said he was precluded from releasing the names of his clients at Weitz & Luxenberg, a personal injury firm where the lawmaker has been employed as an “of counsel” attorney since October 2002.

“I represent individual people who are claimants, individual people, not corporations, not anybody we do business with,” Mr. Silver said.

He said his clients “have nothing to do with this place, except some of them may vote. When I bring a case into the firm, I get paid a percentage of fees that I bring in.” Offering an example, he said he represents a client from Connecticut who was struck by a car. He said all but one of his cases involve individual claimants, with the exception being a “small real estate matter.” “The income is irrelevant,” he said. “If I put down that I make $10 million because I have money in a trust account that was left to me by my father, does that make me better? I don’t have that, but do you understand what I’m saying? The income is secondary whether I make $10 or I make $100,000. What I do for the income is more important.”

He continued: “What’s the difference, tell me, if I put down I make $50,000 or I make $100,000? What if I’m skilled enough to make $200,000? Does it make me a worse person?”

Mr. Silver said Mr. Bruno, the Republican majority leader, ought to be presumed innocent. However, he encouraged Mr. Bruno to be more forthcoming. “If he described the nature of his business that would be helpful,” he said.

In recent months, the low-key Lower East Side politician has been fighting an uphill public relations battle to defend the honor of the Legislature, where more lawmakers have faced investigations than have lost re-election in the past three years. Most members of the Legislature are “hard-working” public servants who understand their responsibilities, Mr. Silver said.

He offered a sobering assessment of his power to stop his colleagues from misbehaving. “There is nothing we can legislate that is going to prevent people who are inclined to do illegal acts to do illegal acts.”

He said: “You get in here if you get elected by 125,000 people somewhere in the state. … I can’t fire you no matter what you do here. It’s not me picking the people who are here.”

In talks with the governor, Mr. Silver, who is known in these halls as a master negotiator, resisted one of Mr. Spitzer’s key demands that the ethics body that has oversight over the Legislature be placed under the control of the governor Messrs. Bruno and Silver still will be able to appoint members of the Legislative Ethics Committee, which will be renamed the Legislative Ethics Commission. The new laws mandate that five of the nine members of the commission have no ties to the Legislature or lobbying firms for five years.

“Basically, there are serious questions as to whether the governor can have the ultimate control over a legislative ethics commission,” Mr. Silver said.