The Central Reason For Conflicts Of Interest Rules... Is To Protect Client Confidences And Secrets: McGuireWoods DC Edition

I return tonight, to the blockbuster NPR story of yesterday, about a white shoe / silk stocking law firm that (it would seem, based on ten separate sources) decided it could make more money by (in secret) throwing off a pro bono client from whom it had received numerous specific litigation strategy secrets, and for whom it had developed confidential work product -- and take on the client's opponent, the Trump appointed head of the entity charged with keeping non-partisan Voice of America running -- specifically, to litigate against the former client, and find dirt to remove officers of that former client who were generally immune to summary firings, as federal civil service employees, of a certain rank.

The whole reason lawyers cannot do this is that the firm would then have a very powerful incentive to invade the secret files of the former litigation client, and use those secrets against the client -- in favor of the firm itself, or the new client. And that is, it seems, exactly what happened here, in the waning moments of the Trumpians' time in office, as the firm made well over $2 million in just a few months -- for work normally done inside the federal government, at no extra charge to the taxpayers.

People may well be disbarred for conduct like this -- and certainly, less well-connected lawyers, at smaller firms have been -- in DC:

. . .Comment [10] to Rule 1.6(g): Exploitation of Confidences and Secrets

. . .In addition to prohibiting the disclosure of a client’s confidences and secrets, subparagraph (a)(2) provides that a lawyer may not use the client’s confidences and secrets to the disadvantage of the client. For example, a lawyer who has learned that the client is investing in specific real estate may not seek to acquire nearby property where doing so would adversely affect the client’s plan for investment. Similarly, information acquired by the lawyer in the course of representing a client may not be used to the disadvantage of that client even after the termination of the lawyer’s representation of the client. However, the fact that a lawyer has once served a client does not preclude the lawyer from using generally known information about the former client when later representing another client. Under subparagraphs (a)(3) and (e)(1), a lawyer may use a client’s confidences and secrets for the lawyer’s own benefit or that of a third party only after the lawyer has obtained the client’s informed consent to the use in question. . . .

There was no consent -- informed or otherwise, as according to the agency GC, she "was blindsided." So, I await the word that the DC Bar authorities have referred this matter to a Hearing Panel, in a few elapsed weeks. [Separately, I note that one of the most promising young litigation stars at the firm's North Georgia offices announced today she is leaving to join the core of US Attorneys under Merrick Garland, in that District. Likely not entirely coincidental, sez Condor.] Onward tonight, grinning -- ever. . . grinning.

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