Anyone know anything about conflict of interest when dealing with law firms?

[Energize]

I was curious about how conflict of interest operates when employing the services of a solicitor or law firm.

A bit random this one, but if knowing that a company was going to be involved in a legal case against me, whether that be as defendant or claimant, could I preemptively hire the same law firm they normally use, but in an unrelated matter to prevent them from using them? Maybe even potentially only "realising" that the opposing side were using said law firm at a critical point in proceedings to greatly compromise their case?

 

[Hotwired]

*isn't this just a case of seeing if the firm fails to notice its already doing Company Vs Energise

If it ends up taking on both sides then someones an idiot and the firm will not be able to act for either

*and if you did ask them for an unrelated issue... then its unrelated?

 

[dcsarge]

Sounds like you should put them on retainer* and then ask their advice.

*I know nothing about this/any part of the law and watch too much American T.V.

 

[richthomuk]

Im pretty sure it would come up during due diligence and then its down to the law firm as to who they want to represent if neither defendant or claimant is already a client of theirs, but i think theres something to do with acting against the interest of a former client. But like Dcsarge, I know nothing about this!!, so my comment is pretty much usless

I suggest watching Harvey on Suits!

 

[semi-pro waster]

Lexis-Nexis has some suggestions for firms to avoid conflicts of interest as does the Law Society.

Is your question whether you could effectively preempt a firm from taking action against you by employing them before they realised they would need to take action against you? It might be possible to prevent a specific firm from acting but would depend on the circumstances of the case so trying out a scenario - if you got them to act for you in say a personal conveyancing matter but were being sued for breach of contract in relation to the business dealings of a company you own or work for then there may be no legitimate cross-over and no substantive conflict of interest. If however you were employing them to undertake conveyancing for the business and there was a breach of contract action against you when you were a property company then presumably that might be more likely to give rise to a conflict of interest. As Hotwired says if it's unrelated then it might well not give rise to any conflict of interest as there would not necessarily be any privileged information in their possession that is relevant to the other case.

If there was a conflict of interest then the remedies/mitigations would also vary but it would be almost impossible to prevent litigation at all (if that was the aim), the law firm in question would be free (and possibly expected to if the conflict was serious enough) to withdraw themselves from the action either in part or entirely while the opposing party in an action is free to engage another law firm if necessary.

I don't think there's any way to answer this definitively without knowing more about the case and I simply don't know enough about conflict of interest to be certain anyway.

 

[Nitefly]

It sounds lazy but in short it just depends on the circumstances. You can browse the SRA rules on the matter which are available online. With non-contentious matters a 'conflict' only tends to be an actual 'we cannot act' issue when a firm is acting for two clients on the same matter, although it is possible. If information provide on the 'unrelated matter' is actually material well then it's obvious there will be an actual conflict and the law firm will have to satisfy both parties they are able to act (through information barriers or working through different offices or similar).

In reality big law firms act for the same clients on unrelated matters terms all the time and large commercial clients take a view and accept that this is going to happen. Their key concern is making sure they don't embarrass themselves or in other words it's more the case that law firms try to avoid 'commercial conflicts'... always opting to favour the client who pays the most fees

 

[Sudden]

It sounds lazy but in short it just depends on the circumstances. You can browse the SRA rules on the matter which are available online. With non-contentious matters a 'conflict' only tends to be an actual 'we cannot act' issue when a firm is acting for two clients on the same matter, although it is possible. If information provide on the 'unrelated matter' is actually material well then it's obvious there will be an actual conflict and the law firm will have to satisfy both parties they are able to act (through information barriers or working through different offices or similar).

In reality big law firms act for the same clients on unrelated matters terms all the time and large commercial clients take a view and accept that this is going to happen. Their key concern is making sure they don't embarrass themselves or in other words it's more the case that law firms try to avoid 'commercial conflicts'... always opting to favour the client who pays the most fees

Seconded.

Firm we use stepped in it when they began acting for someone against us in a small claims. We use them occasionally for commercial matters, so quite unrelated, but they pulled out of the claim pretty sharpish when it was pointed out to them.

 

[Pottsey]

I was curious about how conflict of interest operates when employing the services of a solicitor or law firm.

A bit random this one, but if knowing that a company was going to be involved in a legal case against me, whether that be as defendant or claimant, could I preemptively hire the same law firm they normally use, but in an unrelated matter to prevent them from using them? Maybe even potentially only "realising" that the opposing side were using said law firm at a critical point in proceedings to greatly compromise their case?

It depends on the type of case. Under certain situations the solicitor can represent both sides as long as its not the same staff member dealing with both sides.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Chinese wall.

But in a large law firm, unless the firm is acting on the same case or field, chances are one solicitor doesn't know there is another matter with the same client handled by another solicitor especially when they are in different field. Like a guy doing conveying would have no idea someone else in the same company just got a case where the same client is the defendant in a car accident. They don't generally cross unless it's a very small firm.

 

[Pipe & Slippers]

I have some experience with this in a relatively minor matter and a small-ish firm - around 10 -15 partners

They wouldn't act for me because the person I had in my sights, was the owner/manager of a company that ocassionally used their services in a completely unrelated field of the law

For them, it was better to be safe than sorry in so far as a conflict of interest was concerned...and they probably figured that in the longer term they'd make more money from his company than me

 

[SexyGreyFox]

But in a large law firm, unless the firm is acting on the same case or field, chances are one solicitor doesn't know there is another matter with the same client handled by another solicitor

I deal with Solicitors every working day and last week I said to one of them "Is there any chance you can tell your colleagues to address your letters to the correct address please, this Trust is like a small city and addressing it with the hospital name can take ages to reach us by the time staff have worked it out?" to which the reply was "There are around 250 staff in here, you've got no chance".

 

[Rob200sx]

I was curious about how conflict of interest operates when employing the services of a solicitor or law firm.

A bit random this one, but if knowing that a company was going to be involved in a legal case against me, whether that be as defendant or claimant, could I preemptively hire the same law firm they normally use, but in an unrelated matter to prevent them from using them? Maybe even potentially only "realising" that the opposing side were using said law firm at a critical point in proceedings to greatly compromise their case?

If they have a decent system to manage their matters, chances are they'll have a conflicts module that would automatically flag up things like this.