ABA to Consider Proposal that Would Make Lateral Moves Easier
The ABA House of Delegates will consider a proposed change to model ethics rules that would ease the way for lawyers leaping from one law firm to another.
The controversial proposal would revise the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, used as a guide for lawyer ethics rules in most states, the National Law Journal reports. The proposed amendment would make it easier for a law firm to continue representing a client when it hires a lawyer who represented an adverse party at a prior firm.
The House will debate the proposal at the close of the ABA Annual Meeting in New York, which begins Aug. 7.
The proposal would allow the new law firm to continue to represent the client if it screens the incoming lawyer from participation in the matter. Consent of the incoming lawyer’s former client would not be required, the story says. The present rule requires consent.
Lawrence Fox of Philadelphia’s Drinker Biddle & Reath told the publication that the proposal is “a classic example of lawyers putting convenience over client loyalty.”
But Stanford law professor Deborah Rhode said the proposed amendment is long overdue. “To turn someone into a Typhoid Mary early in their careers is unfair,” she told the newspaper.
Conflicts of interest are discussed in the ABA Journal article “Check Please.”
