Opinions of the General Counsel, 0518 ALBJ, 79 The Alabama Lawyer 224 (2018)
| Position | Vol. 79 3 Pg. 224 |
J. Douglas McElvy, douglas. mcelvy@alabar.org
Required Notice to Client when Attorney Leaves Law Firm
QUESTION:
“This will follow up on the recent telephone call which i made to your office. i had some questions concerning a client who is a lawyer here in Alabama. i will refer to him as Mr. lawyer. Mr. lawyer has left the law firm with which he worked for approximately two and a half years. While Mr. lawyer was with the firm, a number of clients entered into contracts with the firm because of their friendship/relationship with Mr. lawyer. in other words, Mr. lawyer ‘brought’ these clients into the firm. in one instance in question, the client came to the firm for other reasons, but Mr. lawyer was primarily responsible for handling that file and, as a result, has established a strong friendship with the client.
“Mr. lawyer has now voluntarily left the firm. his questions, and mine, concern his obligations and rights to those clients which he ‘brought’ to the firm and whose matters are still pending. he has similar questions regarding the one client who he did not ‘bring’ to the firm.
“The firm may or may not be a partnership. My best information regarding the manner in which the firm is structured is as follows: The firm was owned by an individual lawyer’s professional corporation (John doe, P.C.) and the law firm did business as doe, Jones & smith. Mr. lawyer was not named in the law firm name. The four most senior attorneys, including Mr. lawyer (as well as doe, Jones and smith), received in the form of compensation a draw plus a percentage of the firm revenue after a certain amount of money was made, for example $1,000,000. (The youngest attorney, number five and most recently employed, was on salary only.) Mr. lawyer was told by Mr. doe this was the amount of anticipated revenue for a year. however, if the law firm exceeded the anticipated revenue, Mr. lawyer would receive the agreed-upon percentage. likewise, if the law firm’s revenue was less than anticipated, Mr. lawyer would not receive a percentage until the anticipated amount of revenue was reached, e.g. $1,000,000.
“All contracts with regard to clients, including those which were ‘brought’ into the firm by Mr. lawyer and in the one instance where the client was not ‘brought’ by Mr. lawyer, were between client and doe, Jones & Smith...
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