Ethics of Joint Representations: Keeping Secrets & Telling Tales

course

COURSE INFO

  • Presentation Date 12/18/2019
  • Next Class Time 10:00 AM PT
  • Duration 60 min.
  • Format Audio Webcast
  • Program Code 12182019
  • Ethics Credits 1 hour(s)


Course Price: $65.00
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COURSE DESCRIPTION

Joint representation in litigation is fraught with potential conflicts of interest among the jointly represented parties.  There are substantial issues related to decision-making, information flows, confidentiality, and loyalty.  Any of these issues, if not carefully explained to clients and documented in written waivers, may lead to dramatically adverse results for clients – and expose the lawyer to ethics complaints and potential discipline.  This program will provide you with a practical guide to the substantial ethical issues in joint representations in litigation and how to navigate them.

  • Forms of joint representations – separate representation on same matter v. joint representation on same matter
  • Information flows under “keep secrets” and “no secrets” agreements
  • Information flows in the absence of any agreement – what happens when there are no guardrails?
  • Loyalty issues – managing inherent conflicts of interest and the use of advance waivers
  • Voluntary and inadvertent creation of joint representations
  • Attorney-client privilege ramifications in a later arising dispute among jointly represented clients

 

Speakers:

Elizabeth Treubert Simon is an ethics attorney in the Washington, D.C. office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, where she advises on a wide range of ethics and compliance-related matters to support Akin Gump’s offices worldwide.  Previously, she practiced law in Washington DC and New York, focusing on business and commercial litigation and providing counsel to clients regarding professional ethics and attorney disciplinary procedures.  She is a member of the New York State Bar Association Committee on Professional Discipline and the District of Columbia Legal Ethics Committee.  She writes and speaks extensively on attorney ethics issues.   She received her B.A. and M.S. from the University of Pennsylvania and her J.D. from Albany Law School.

Thomas E. Spahn is a partner in the McLean, Virginia office of McGuireWoods, LLP, where he has a substantial practice advising clients on properly creating and preserving the attorney-client privilege and work product protections.  For more than 30 years he has lectured extensively on legal ethics and professionalism and has written “The Attorney-Client Privilege and the Work Product Doctrine: A Practitioner’s Guide,” a 750 page treatise published by the Virginia Law Foundation.  Mr. Spahn has served as a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and as a member of the Virginia State Bar's Legal Ethics Committee.  He received his B.A., magna cum laude, from Yale University and his J.D. from Yale Law School.