Lawyers Preparing for a New Look to Practice In Our Post-Pandemic Lives Should Be Guided by ABA Formal Opinion 498

Virtual practice and remote work are seemingly here to stay, in some capacity.  The ABA’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility recently issued a formal ethics opinion addressing virtual practice to help guide practitioners.  The ABA’s Formal Opinion tracks similar guidance issued from state bar associations, such as the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Formal Opinion 2020-300 (Ethical Obligations for Lawyers Working Remotely).

We spent the past year uncertain what our post-pandemic lives will look like, but we are slowly gaining clarity.  Firms are preparing to reopen but are doing so with the understanding that work-from-home flexibility will likely remain, to some degree.  The way that we practice and interact with colleagues, clients, adversaries, judges, and witnesses has forever changed. ABA Formal Opinion 498 (March 10, 2021) helps navigate the relevant ethical considerations for lawyers when practicing virtually.

Undoubtedly professional responsibilities and obligations bind an attorney regardless of their location, but certain Model Rules are of particular importance when practicing virtually.  Key considerations addressed by Formal Opinion 498 are confidentiality, competence, and supervision.  The Opinion goes beyond security concerns that have been expressed repeatedly in years past, such as secure wifi connections and two-factor authentications, and addresses issues that arise when our family homes are now our offices—and also our significant other’s office and children’s classrooms.  The Opinion also comes on the heels of Formal Opinion 495, issued in December, which addresses lawyers working remotely from jurisdictions in which they not licensed to practice—a common scenario during the pandemic.

When Family Homes Become Family Offices.  During the last year many attorneys, and other professionals, have been working in tight corners and shared spaces making concealing confidential documents and guarding confidential communications particularly important.  Attorneys must make reasonable efforts to avoid inadvertently disclosing or granting unauthorized access to confidential client information.  Working from home where others are present should involve keeping work surfaces free of confidential papers and computer desktops free from confidential documents and communications.  For those who routinely print hard copies of documents, it is important to remember to shred them when finished and not to merely drop them in the kitchen trash bin.  Computer screens should be locked when the attorney is a way to avoid confidential information being left displayed.  Phone calls and virtual meetings are best taken using headphones to avoid unintended listeners from overhearing privileged conversations.  Lastly, the Formal Opinion reminds attorneys to turn off listening enabled devices, like Alexa and Siri, in their workspaces. 

Learning the Ins and Outs of New Technology. We all quickly adapted to a half dozen video conferencing platforms that a year ago many of us couldn’t even name.  Today, we click a link, turn cameras on, and hopefully remember to mute when not speaking.  But are attorneys closely looking at the service providers’ terms and conditions and knowledgeable of the privacy settings?  They need to be.  Formal Opinion 498 urges practitioners to be familiar to such terms and also updates and changes to any terms, which can be made frequently.

Supervising Colleagues from a Distance.  Much has been said and written about the impact of remote work environments on the younger generations of employees—within the legal profession and other workplaces.  Lawyers with managerial authority, unlike other professionals, have an ethical obligation to establish policies to ensure compliance with ethical obligations and supervising attorneys have a duty to ensure that their subordinates comply with the rules of professional conduct.  This, for obvious reasons, is significantly more difficult to oversee when colleagues are working in their own separate spaces, but the ethical obligations remain.  The Formal Opinion advises managing and supervising attorneys to check-in with their subordinates—both lawyers and non-lawyers—frequently and routinely.  Regular interaction and communication is more critical than ever.  This also provides an opportunity for attorneys to check in on each other’s mental health and well-being during these difficult times.

While things are looking up and plans coming together to return to our offices in the coming months, the ABA’s Formal Opinion 498 prepares us for the reality that the days of being in a traditional brick-and-mortar office full-time may never return, and adequate measures must be in place to adjust accordingly.

Leigh Ann Benson is a member of Cozen O’Connor’s Legal Professionals Practice Group, and a member of the PBA Bar Leaders Institute class.

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ABA Issues New Guidance on Lawyers’ Ethical Duties to Prospective Clients

The ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility (the “Committee”) recently issued Formal Opinion 492 (the “Opinion”), in which the Committee offers helpful guidance on navigating the duties to prospective clients under Model Rule 1.18. Attorneys and conflict-avoidance software alike tend to focus on conflicts of interest with current and former clients, and may disregard the risks associated with prospective clients with whom an attorney-client relationship is ultimately never formed. The Opinion serves as an important reminder to attorneys that prospective clients are indeed owed certain duties – and that even a short consultation that does not lead to a retention could disqualify the lawyer – and even the lawyer’s entire firm – from undertaking a future representation of a different person or entity.

The duties described in Rule 1.18 apply to prospective clients. A prospective client is a “person who consults with a lawyer about the possibility of forming a client-lawyer relationship with respect to a matter.” The comments clarify what does – and what does not – constitute a consultation. Comment [2] explains that “a consultation is likely to have occurred if a lawyer … specifically requests or invites the submission of information about a potential representation without clear and reasonably understandable warnings and cautionary statements that limit the lawyer’s obligations, and a person provides information in response.” On the other hand, a consultation has not occurred within the meaning of the Rule if a person unilaterally provides information to an attorney, such as through an unsolicited email seeking legal help.1 To be accorded prospective client status, a person must have consulted with the attorney in good faith about the possibility of forming an attorney-client relationship.2 So under the current Model Rule, Tony Soprano’s efforts to conflict out every high-powered divorce attorney in the community by disclosing information during multiple consultations would have fallen short. Tony was not consulting with the attorneys in good faith.3

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ABA Issues New Ethics Guidance on Conflicts Arising Out of a Lawyer’s Personal Relationship With Opposing Counsel

Many lawyers are married to lawyers, socialize with other lawyers, and count lawyers they have interacted with on a professional level for years as friends. When do these relationships create conflicts of interest that require lawyers to take steps to address the conflict?

The American Bar Association’s Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.7(a)(2) prohibits a lawyer from representing a client without informed consent where there is a significant risk that the lawyer’s personal interest will materially limit the lawyer’s ability to represent the client.

Comment [11] to Model Rule 1.7(a)(2) discusses how the Model Rule relates to personal interest conflicts based on blood or marriage:

When lawyers representing different clients in the same matter or in substantially related matters are closely related by blood or marriage, there may be a significant risk that client confidences will be revealed and that the lawyer’s family relationship will interfere with both loyalty and independent professional judgment…Thus, a lawyer related to another lawyer, e.g., as parent, child, sibling or spouse, ordinarily may not represent a client in a matter where that lawyer is representing another party, unless each client gives informed consent.

The practical implications of a personal interest conflict are easy enough to identify where the lawyers on opposite sides of a case are related by blood or marriage. For example, there would be a significant risk of a disabling personal interest conflict where a plaintiffs’ personal injury lawyer handling a matter on a contingency fee basis appeared at a settlement conference or mediation where his or her spouse was on the other side of the case. The test is whether the lawyer “reasonably believes” that he or she can continue to provide competent and diligent representation to the client notwithstanding the personal interest conflict. If so, then both clients should provide informed consent, in writing, to permit the lawyer to proceed with the representation notwithstanding the personal interest conflict.

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Division of Fees Between Discharged Counsel and Successor Counsel in Contingent Fee Cases

When a client terminates, without cause, its legal representation in a contingent fee matter and subsequently retains new counsel from a different firm, the Rules of Professional Conduct related to the division and disbursement of fees impose certain requirements on the successor attorney. The American Bar Association recently issued Formal Opinion 4871 (the “Opinion”) to identify the applicable rules, and to clarify the duties owed to the client by the successor attorney.

The Opinion explains that Model Rule 1.5(e) (or its state equivalent) has no application to the division of fees in cases of successive representation.2 Such situations are governed by Rule 1.5(b)- (c), which according to the Opinion, require the successor counsel to “notify the client, in writing, that a portion of any contingent fee earned may be paid to the predecessor attorney.”

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Ethical Implications When Outsourcing Legal Work

Outsourcing on the Upswing

In an era where lawyers and law firms seek to run “lean” as a way of keeping costs down, outsourcing legal and nonlegal services once performed in-house by law firms can be a wise financial move. The advent of COVID-19 has accelerated consideration of outsourcing various administrative services so as to streamline back office functions.

‘‘Outsourcing’’ generally refers to ‘‘the practice of taking a specific task or function previously performed within a firm or entity and, for reasons including cost and efficiency, having it performed by an outside service provider.’’ See ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20, Revised Proposal – Outsourcing (Sept. 19, 2001). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, additional reasons for outsourcing include the need for social distancing and the necessity of firms working remotely.

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