Client-Lawyer Relationship - Duty of Loyalty Flashcards
Duty of Loyalty - In General
You have a duty of loyalty to represent your client faithfully and adequately. Rules like 1.7 that pose problems because of concurrent conflicts exist, in part, because having a conflict of interest means you can’t be fully loyal to that client.
Unnamed Atty v. Kentucky Bar
Husband and wife hired Atty to defend shooting death of wife’s former husband. Both of them said they didn’t do it. Atty didn’t warn them that if they did joint representation, he would not be able to keep that information confidential because of the conflict (for one he must keep the secret, but for the other he must inform them). This is because of his duty of loyalty in addition to the issues of confidential communications.
Remember, joint representation is ok but you must warn about the reasonably foreseeable pitfalls of joint representation, such as the possibility of conflicting duties of loyalty.
Santacroce
Can’t drop a client like a hot potato. Part of the reason is that you have a duty of loyalty to the existing client not to drop them just for a more lucrative new client.
Duty of Loyalty - Former Clients
Rule 1.9(a) recognizes loyalty and client confidences as the two interests of the client that must be protected.
Suppose you represent the seller in the sale of a business. Later you represent the buyer of that business and tell her to stop making payments to the seller who has not complied with the terms of the deal. Your advice to the buyer breached your continuing duty of loyalty to the prior client, the seller, even in the absence of any showing that the seller’s confidential information was disclosed to the buyer.
Duty of Loyalty - Prospective Clients
If the prospective client never becomes a client, generally you cannot represent another client who has interests “materially adverse to those of a prospective client in the same or substantially related matter if the lawyer received information from the prospective client that could be significantly harmful to that person in the matter.” Rule 1.18(c).
Duty of Loyalty - Imputation
The duty of loyalty is part of the rationale for why imputation occurs. All lawyers with whom you are affiliated owe a duty of loyalty to their clients. The rationale for requiring imputation is that a lawyer uses all the resources of his firm in representing a client, including sharing confidential information with his colleagues.
