Start out right: identify your client or clients.

Summary

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Part 2 - Manual for lawyers representing insured defendants

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Start out right: identify your client or clients.

Identify Your Client or Clients

Whom does an insurance defense lawyer represent? In the simplest case, where there is but one policyholder and one insurer, the possibilities are three: only the policyholder, only the insurance carrier, or both the policyholder and the carrier as co-clients. Unless coverage is disputed and the coverage dispute is of a particular kind, all three options are both available and ethically proper. On being asked to handle a new file, a defense lawyer should discuss the options with the insurance carrier's claims professional in charge and reach a decision concerning the number of clients.

Most jurisdictions have adopted the view that a defense lawyer ordinarily has two clients. A smaller but growing number hold that the policyholder is the only client and that the carrier holds the status of a non-client contractor.

Courts that follow the majority rule that defense counsel has two clients include but are not limited to:

* Mitchum v. Hudgens, 533 So.2d 194, 198 (Ala. 1988) ("the attorney represents the insured as well as the insurance company");

* Home Indemnity Co. v. Lane, ...

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