And the Final Rose Goes To...

• Author: Anthony R. Mcclure
• Pages: 4-5

By Anthony R . McClure, Litigation

News Associate Editor

© Photo illustrat ion by Elmarie C. Jar a / Getty Images

PERHAPS NOW MORE THAN EVER in to day’s

ever-chang ing economy, issues relating

to lawyers transition ing between rms

are top of mind. A state ba r committee

on professional responsibility has i ssued

an opinion on the “ethi cal obligations

that arise when a law yer departs from

her law rm.” This opin ion provides

that, above all else , the primary direc-

tive is that the client’s intere sts must

come rst, the cl ient has the right to the

counsel of his or her choice , and lawyers

must protect their cl ients’ interests dur-

ing all phases of a ny transition.

In Formal Opin ion No. 2020-

201, the Standing C ommittee on

Professional Responsibilit y and

Conduct of the State Ba r of California

recognize s that “[l]awyer mobility is

a reality in tod ay’s legal marketplace”

and that the news is  lled with stories

of transition s that are “accompanied

by tales of acrimony or conte ntious-

ness between t he departing lawyer(s)

and the former law r m.” The opinion

thus identies mu ltiple ethical pri nci-

ples for lawyers and thei r rms to fol-

low during any such tra nsition.

The opinion rs t identies a fun-

damental pri nciple: clients are not the

property of any law r m or lawyer. As

a result, the gu iding ethical principles

governing any attorne y departure are the

protection of the client ’s best interests

and the client’s right to the cou nsel of his

or her choice. And above all els e, “the

client’s interest always remai ns para-

mount.”

Duty to Communicate

The opinion dis cusses the mutua l obli-

gations of both the depa rting lawyer

and the former law r m to “inform

certain cl ients about [the lawyer’s]

departure a s soon as reasonably

practical to al low clients to make an

informed choice in c ounsel and to pro-

vide for a smooth tran sition to avoid

prejudice to clients.” The general t est

of whether a client should be i nformed

of a lawyer’s departure i s to consider it

from the client’s point of view, accord-

ing to the opinion, b ecause communi -

cations should always be governed by

the overall principle of what is i n the

best interest of the c lient.

On the question of when c lients

should be told of the lawyer’s depar-

ture, the opin ion suggests a reason-

ableness standard . Although thi s

Published in Litigation News Volume 45, Number 4, Summer 20 20. © 2020 by the Ameri can Bar Association. Re produced with per mission. All rights re served. This info rmation or any porti on thereof may not be c opied or disseminated in any

form or by any means or sto red in an electronic da tabase or retrieval sy stem without the ex press writt en consent of the Amer ican Bar Associatio n.

And the

Final Rose

Goes To...

When lawyers leave a

rm, how do clients

decide who will continue

to represent them?