Source: https://bostonbarjournal.com/category/special-edition-2016-vol-60-4/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 22:01:51+00:00

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Attorneys who advise closely-held corporations face recurring ethical challenges when conflicts develop among owners and managers of the business. The Supreme Judicial Court recently issued a unanimous decision, Bryan Corp. v. Abrano, 474 Mass. 504 (June 14, 2016), http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10526802548823881243&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr that provides much needed guidance to attorneys practicing in this area and that has broader implications for attorney-client relationships generally. The decision addresses, among other important ethical concerns, how to assess conflicts of interest and obtain informed consent, how to properly terminate a client relationship, to whom in a close corporation do attorneys owe a duty of loyalty, and under what circumstances, if any, are attorneys permitted to drop one client like a “hot potato” for another, presumably more lucrative, opportunity.
In Abrano, a law firm was advising certain officials of Byran Corp., a closely held corporation, and representing the corporation in litigation against another company. The law firm did not have an agreement with the client limiting the scope of the engagement or addressing conflict or withdrawal situations. A dispute arose over the company’s compensation of its shareholders. The law firm advised one of the shareholders on the pay dispute, sent a demand letter to Bryan Corp. on behalf of a group of shareholders, and subsequently withdrew from its representation of Bryan Corp. in the pending litigation. The law firm terminated its representation of the company by sending a notice to a Bryan Corp. officer whom the law firm was representing in the pay dispute. When lawsuits erupted over the pay dispute, Bryan Corp. moved to disqualify its former law firm from representing adverse parties.
The SJC upheld the trial court’s order disqualifying the law firm. Notably, there was no finding of actual prejudice, nor were there any findings of fact supporting the order. The SJC’s holding rested on violations of both the common law duty of loyalty that attorneys owe clients and Massachusetts Rule of Professional Conduct 1.7, governing concurrent and successive representation of clients. The SJC reasoned that the compensation dispute with current shareholders created a potential conflict that made it improper for the corporation’s law firm to represent those individual shareholders as concurrent clients without first obtaining the company’s informed consent. By accepting the new representation without first obtaining such a waiver, the law firm breached its duty of loyalty to Bryan Corp. and violated the prohibition in Rule 1.7 against concurrent representation of clients whose interests are materially adverse. The decision also confirmed that disqualification can be a proper remedy for ethical violations even without a showing of actual prejudice.
The court also held that law firm’s termination of the client engagement was improper. Consent to terminate an engagement with an organizational must be given by an authorized representative of the organization who has no conflict of interest in the decision. Moreover, the development of the conflict between Bryan Corp. and certain shareholders did not, by itself, justify the firm’s withdrawal as counsel for the company in the pending but unrelated litigation.
The law firm argued that initially there was no adversity between the shareholders and the company and no showing of actual prejudice. The SJC rejected those arguments as overly narrow readings of Rule 1.7, which encompasses the duty to anticipate potential conflicts, and Rule 1.13, the comments to which instruct that when an organizational client’s interests may be or become adverse to those of a constituent, the lawyer should advise the constituent of the conflict or potential conflict of interest and that the lawyer cannot then represent the constituent. The law firm had a duty to use “reasonable measures” to ascertain whether an actual conflict of interest was likely to occur, and, in this case, the law firm “should have known” that the interests of their concurrent clients were likely to become adverse in the near future, given the structure of the small board, the compensation dispute, and prior advice the law firm had given the shareholders about likely conflicts occurring if the board membership changed.
Abrano illuminates the breadth and depth of the duty of loyalty that Massachusetts attorneys owe their clients. To fulfill that duty, attorneys must maintain undivided loyalty to the client during the term of the engagement. The SJC explains that such undivided loyalty means taking no actions adverse to a current client and declining likely adverse representations without the client’s informed consent. The duty of loyalty also obligates attorneys to complete their engagements, unless the client relationship is terminated with informed consent by an unconflicted representative.
Abrano puts the burden on attorneys to assess the likelihood of a conflict when considering concurrent representation. Attorneys must undertake “reasonable measures” to anticipate conflicts and will be held to professional negligence standards in doing so. Precisely what measures are reasonable under different circumstances is unclear, and Abrano gives no further guidance beyond the facts specific to that case.
The SJC expressly declined to decide whether to adopt the so-called Hot Potato doctrine, which limits a firm’s ability to drop a client “like a hot potato” so that it may accept or continue representation of another client in a matter adverse to the first client. The SJC found that the duty of loyalty and professional rules were sufficiently broad to address the situation in Abrano, where the law firm started a new, potentially adverse engagement before terminating the existing client relationship. What is left unanswered is whether an attorney may terminate a client relationship and shortly afterwards engage a new client adverse to the former client. Is the Hot Potato doctrine needed to regulate such situations where the matters are unrelated, or is Rule 1.9 sufficient?
Abrano highlights the importance of carefully crafted engagement letters to avoid ethical as well as practical problems in the attorney-client relationship. An engagement letter should (i) identify who is the client, (ii) explain what will happen if a potential conflict arises among concurrent clients, including which client (if any) the attorney will continue to represent after the conflict arises, (iii) limit the scope of engagement; (iv) explain how the engagement may terminate before its completion, and (v) discuss business concerns, including representation of competitors or other adverse parties on unrelated matters. Done correctly, engagement letters should encourage ethical conduct, avoid misunderstandings, and simplify decision-making for attorneys and clients.
The Abrano decision brings much needed guidance for attorneys representing closely-held businesses and for all attorneys facing questions about how to begin and end client relationships properly. Several questions remain unanswered, including whether the SJC might apply the Hot Potato doctrine to situations where attorneys end one client relationship for the purpose of engaging a new client adverse to the former client. For now, what is clear from Abrano is that Massachusetts attorneys must be mindful of and responsibly fulfill their duty of loyalty and professional conduct obligations when commencing and terminating client relationships.
Paul Lannon is a litigation partner at Holland & Knight LLP and Co-Chair of the Ethics Committee of the Boston Bar Association.
In Verdrager v. Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo, P.C., 474 Mass. 382 (2016), the Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”) held, inter alia, that triable issues of fact existed as to whether a law firm’s legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for demoting and then terminating a female attorney were a pretext for gender discrimination. While the Court followed well-established precedent in applying the burden-shifting analysis to reach its conclusion, the evidence it relied upon ultimately may provide employee-plaintiffs who lack direct evidence of discrimination with expanding options to demonstrate pretext in order to survive summary judgment.
Verdrager v. Mintz, Levin, et al.
The plaintiff, Kamee Verdrager, was hired by Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky, & Popeo, P.C., (“firm”) in June 2004. Less than a month into her employment, she alleged that a male member of the firm made several sexually-charged comments to her — which she reported to human resources, the managing director, and the attorney managing her group. The firm investigated her claims and found no evidence of gender-based discrimination. Subsequent to lodging her complaint, Verdrager received several mixed performance reviews.
After returning from maternity leave in November 2006, Verdrager received two negative reviews and, in February 2007, the senior attorneys in her group sought to terminate her employment. However, the firm’s chairman instead decided to demote Verdrager by “setting her back” two years in seniority — with a corresponding salary reduction — thereby allowing the firm additional time to determine her eligibility for membership. In response, Verdrager retained counsel and filed an internal complaint alleging that the decision was the result of gender discrimination. The firm’s investigation did not substantiate her claims.
Later that spring, and approximately six times thereafter while accessing the firm’s document management system (DeskSite), Verdrager searched for and discovered dozens of internal documents related to her case which she forwarded to her personal email account.
After receiving five positive evaluations from April to October 2007, Verdrager filed a Charge of Discrimination at the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (“MCAD”) in December 2007, alleging that the step-back decision was discriminatory.
In November 2008, during a national economic slowdown, several associates, including Verdrager, were selected for layoff. While the firm offered to settle her MCAD claim if she accepted the layoff, Verdrager refused. Later that same day, she met with and showed a member of the firm one of the documents she accessed from DeskSite. The firm subsequently discovered Verdrager’s previous DeskSite searches and terminated her as a result. (The use of self-help is discussed in another article in this edition).
Verdrager filed a second charge at the MCAD alleging that the step-back decision and her termination were the result of gender discrimination and retaliation for her internal complaint and previous MCAD complaint. After the case was filed in Superior Court, the defendants moved for summary judgment, which was granted. Verdrager petitioned for direct appellate review to the SJC.
To survive summary judgment, employee-plaintiffs must demonstrate that a “reasonable jury” could find: (1) that the plaintiff is a member of a protected class, (2) that the plaintiff suffered an adverse employment action (e.g., demotion or termination), (3) discriminatory animus on the part of employer, and (4) causation. Like most discrimination cases, the Court focused on the last two elements.
As the Court explained, while employees are rarely equipped with direct evidence demonstrating discriminatory animus and causation, “they may survive a motion for summary judgment by producing ‘indirect or circumstantial evidence [of these elements] using the familiar three-stage, burden-shifting paradigm first set out in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973).’” Verdrager, 474 Mass. at 396 (citation omitted). Having found the first two stages were satisfied – i.e., Verdrager demonstrated a prima facie case of discrimination (member of a protected class, performed her job at an acceptable level, suffered an adverse employment action), and defendants articulated a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for her termination (mixed performance reviews, certain partners not willing to work with her, low utilization on a high billing rate, and her engaging in self-help), id. at 398 — the SJC turned its attention to the final stage, which requires that the plaintiff produce evidence that the employer’s justification for the adverse action was a pretext.
Lowered Burden of Production to Demonstrate Pretext?
At the outset, the Court reiterated that Massachusetts is a “pretext-only jurisdiction,” holding that an employee can show that an employer’s nondiscriminatory reasons given for its actions were not the real reasons, “even if that evidence does not show directly that the true reasons were, in fact, discriminatory.” Id. at 397, citing Bulwer v. Mount Auburn Hosp., 473 Mass. 672 (2016). While the Court looked at several “traditional” examples of indirect evidence (e.g., similarly situated male employees being treated more favorably), the Court relied upon other indirect evidence in finding that the reasons given for the adverse job action may have been pretextual.
Significantly, the Court considered evidence from a 2005 report, which was completed by a consulting firm in the wake of an earlier discrimination suit, unrelated to the present case. The report found that “[m]any female [attorneys] … believe it is more difficult for women than men at Mintz[,]” id. at 400-01, and that some of the members may be inherently biased against women. The Court held that this could be considered evidence of the employer’s “general practice and policies” concerning members of the protected class, and supported Verdrager’s contention that the firm’s proffered reasons for her termination were pretextual. Id. at 400 (quotations omitted). By relying on generalized complaints about the attitude of the firm towards women, the Court made it virtually impossible for the firm win on summary judgment, since there is no feasible way to deny a perceived bias without creating a disputed material fact.
The Court also found that “a reasonable jury could interpret a number of the [criticisms made by] the plaintiff’s evaluators and supervisors as reflecting stereotypical thinking…categorizing people on the basis of broad generalizations,” id., at 399-400 (citations and quotations omitted), and that those statements, when considered with other evidence, “may lend support to the contention that the adverse employment action was made on an impermissible basis.” Id. at 400 (quotations omitted). For example, the Court held that comments related to Verdrager taking vacation and her not consistently being in the office “could be understood to reflect a stereotypical view of women as not committed to their work because of family responsibilities[,]” id. at 400, despite the comments themselves being completely gender-neutral.
While lower courts ultimately will decide how much weight to apply to perceived “stereotypical thinking” about protected classes, because those stereotypes are based upon subjective views historically held by others, this particular factor creates a type of pretext evidence that is likely to be more difficult for employers to rebut through summary judgment.
In sum, although the Court followed longstanding precedent in applying the McDonnell Douglas test, the specific factors it used to determine pretext arguably may lower the threshold for plaintiffs in meeting their burden moving forward.
Damien M. DiGiovanni is an associate at Morgan, Brown & Joy LLP where his practice focuses exclusively on management-side labor and employment matters. He is also a member of the Labor and Employment Law Section and the College and University Law Section of the Boston Bar Association.
In Verdrager v. Mintz Levin, 474 Mass. 382 (2016), the Supreme Judicial Court answered a question of first impression under Massachusetts law: Do the anti-retaliation provisions of state anti-discrimination law protect an employee who accesses her employer’s documents to support her employment discrimination claim? The SJC held that, under certain circumstances, such activity may be “protected,” thereby precluding an employer from taking any adverse employment action based on that activity. The decision examined the interplay between “self-help discovery,” or searches of employer materials outside the formal litigation discovery process, and the protections of the Commonwealth’s chief anti-bias statute, G.L. c. 151B, which bars retaliation against plaintiffs who engage in “protected activity.” G.L. c. 151B, §4(4). The SJC articulated the standards to be applied in determining whether employee acts of self-help discovery are protected, and specified limits on that protection.
Although this was a question of first impression in Massachusetts, in deciding that “self-help” discovery in a c. 151B case may be protected activity, the Court was not writing on a blank slate. Rather, its decision drew upon the sizeable case law on this issue that courts around the country have developed. Indeed, the multi-factor test for protected activity that the SJC has now adopted was expressly derived from a leading New Jersey case, Quinlan v. Curtiss-Wright Corp., 8 A.3d 209, 204 N.J. 239 (2010). It is likely that Massachusetts courts will look to decisions from other jurisdictions in applying the new Massachusetts standards.
Consistently with the courts that have confronted this issue and its own jurisprudence on protected activity under c. 151B, see, e.g., Abramian v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll., 432 Mass. 107, 121 (2000), the SJC in Verdrager held that self-help discovery “may in certain circumstances constitute protected activity under the statute, but only if the employee’s actions are reasonable in the totality of the circumstances.” But the SJC placed an important limit on this holding, namely that only documents that would be subject to formal discovery may be subject to protected self-help discovery, although that can include privileged documents. Finally, the Court noted that the determination whether the self-help discovery at issue was reasonable is to be made as a matter of law by the court, not by the jury.
Of particular note for lawyers, the SJC held that self-help discovery protections apply equally to attorney-employees, such as the Verdrager plaintiff, and to documents that may be attorney-client privileged. The SJC focused on the importance of ensuring that attorney-employees have the same opportunity as other employees to show documents to their own lawyers in order to obtain legal advice.
In sum, Verdrager now provides protection for reasonable acts of employee self-help discovery. Employers will need to proceed very cautiously before taking adverse action against employees who acquire internal documents, even confidential ones, in the course of pursuing discrimination claims. But discrimination plaintiffs, too, will need to consider carefully the factors articulated by the Court, and to judge carefully what acts of self-discovery will survive the future application of what we can now cal the seven-factor Verdrager test.
Ellen J. Messing is a partner in the Boston firm of Messing, Rudavsky & Weliky, P.C., which concentrates its practice in representing employees in labor and employment litigation, including wrongful termination, discrimination, contract, sexual harassment, and public employee matters.
In February 2016 the Supreme Judicial Court decided Skawski v. Greenfield Investors Prop. Dev. LLC, 473 Mass. 580 (2016), and concluded that, in establishing the permit session of the Land Court, “the Legislature intended that major development permit appeals should be adjudicated only in the permit session of the Land Court or in the Superior Court.” Id. at 581. Therefore, Skawski ruled that the Housing Court lacked jurisdiction over challenges to a special permit granted for a major developments. That decision was consistent with both the Appeals Court’s rescript decision in Skawski, 87 Mass. App. Ct. 903 (2015), and the Appeals Court’s earlier decision in Buccaneer Dev., Inc. v. Zoning Bd. of Appeals of Lenox, 87 Mass. App. Ct. 871 (2015).
G.L. c. 185, § 3A (“Section 3A”) gave rise to each of these cases. That statute, which was enacted in 2006, established the permit session of the Land Court and granted it “original jurisdiction, concurrently with the superior court department, over civil actions in whole or part … arising out of the appeal of any municipal, regional or state permit, order, certificate or approval, or the denial thereof, concerning the use or development of real property” and other similar projects with 25 or more dwelling units and/or involving the construction or alteration of 25,000 square feet or more of gross floor area (which Skaswki termed “major developments”).
Skawski considered an abutter’s challenge to a special permit granted by the Greenfield Planning Board for construction of a retail development of approximately 135,000 square feet. As was then common in Hampden County, the appeal was filed in Housing Court.
The Chief Justice of the Trial Court denied a motion to transfer the case to the permit session of the Land Court. Later, the Chief Justice of the Housing Court failed to act on a request by the trial judge that the case be transferred administratively to the Superior Court Department and that she (the Housing Court trial judge) be cross-designated as a Superior Court judge.
Faced with a pending motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the Housing Court judge withdrew her request and denied the motion to transfer the case. She then reported her ruling to the Appeals Court. Following the Appeals Court’s reversal of the trial judge’s order, the SJC granted the plaintiff’s application for further appellate review.
The issue confronted by the SJC was how to square Section 3A, which established the permit session, with G.L. c. 40A, § 17 (“Section 17”), which “gave subject matter jurisdiction in all permit appeals to the Housing Court, along with the Land Court, Superior Court, and District Court, and G.L. c. 185C, § 20, [which] gave any party the power to transfer such an appeal to the Housing Court if it were not initially filed there.” Skawski, 473 Mass. at 585. Chief Justice Gants engaged in a lengthy analysis of the language, context and history of Section 3A to reach the conclusion that the Housing Court was without subject matter jurisdiction to hear the appeal.
Skawski first acknowledged that Section 3A did not expressly repeal Section 17. The SJC next turned to the legislative purpose of Section 3A to determine if it repealed Section 17 by clear implication. The SJC emphasized that Section 3A was but one section of St. 2006, c. 205 (the “act”), “whose purpose is clear from its title, ‘An Act relative to streamlining and expediting the permitting process in the commonwealth,’ and its preamble—‘to forthwith expedite the permitting process in the commonwealth.’” Skawski, 473 Mass. at 587. “From the text of the act and its legislative history, it is plain that the Legislature sought to reduce the costs and delays of the permitting process required to conduct business and develop property.” Id. (citations omitted). The SJC also observed that the “comprehensive scope of the act further suggests that the Legislature intended to be equally comprehensive in declaring which court departments would have original jurisdiction to adjudicate major development permit appeals.” Id. at 588.
In light of the legislative purpose, the SJC concluded that, “[b]y specifying that the Superior Court Department shared concurrent jurisdiction with the permit session of the Land Court, and not also specifying any other court department as having concurrent jurisdiction, the Legislature impliedly reflected its intent that these major development permit appeals be adjudicated only by these two courts.” Id. at 587-88 (emphasis added; citations omitted).
The SJC found further support for this conclusion in the fact that the “establishment of the permit session of the Land Court to hear major development permit appeals was an integral part of the act’s over-all plan to expedite the permitting process because § 3A establishes demanding time frames for the final disposition of such appeals in the permit session.” In addition, Section 3A “allows any party, with the approval of the Chief Justice of the Trial Court, to transfer the appeal to the permit session…. But, if the Housing Court continued to have jurisdiction over these cases, any party could invoke G.L. c. 185C, § 20, and ensure that the final disposition of the appeal would be decided, not by the permit session, but by the Housing Court.” Id. at 588-89. Finally, the SJC found that the legislative history further supported its decision. Id. at 589-591.
that the clear implication of these amendments is that the Legislature intended that major development permit appeals be adjudicated in the permit session and, if they could not be, either because the Chief Justice of the Trial Court denied the motion to transfer the case to that session or because a party claimed a right to a jury trial, that they be adjudicated in the Superior Court Department …. In short, … the clear implication of § 3A is that the Legislature wanted all major development permit appeals to be adjudicated either in the permit session of the Land Court or in the Superior Court and therefore limited jurisdiction over these cases to these courts.
Id. at 590-91 (footnote omitted).
Interestingly, the SJC did not order dismissal of the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Rather, it remanded the case to Housing Court to give the parties the opportunity to apply to the Chief Justice of the Trial Court for a transfer to the permit session of the Land Court or to the Superior Court.
Skawski gives effect to the Legislature’s intent to expedite appeals concerning major projects through use of the newly established permit session of the Land Court, staffed by judges with an expertise in land use matters. Practitioners should take note that interdepartmental assignments of Housing Court judges to hear major development permit appeals are now impossible because the Housing Court is without jurisdiction over such appeals, notwithstanding the language of G.L. c. 40A, § 17 and G.L. c. 185C, § 20.
Gordon Orloff is a litigator at Rackemann, Sawyer & Brewster in Boston, where he focuses on resolving real estate, land use, probate and business disputes. Mr. Orloff is a regular contributor to Massachusetts Land Use Monitor, a blog that reports on new developments in real estate and land use law.
Attorneys can initiate post-verdict contact with jurors without court permission or supervision, in the wake of the Supreme Judicial Court’s holding in Commonwealth v. Moore, 474 Mass. 541 (2016). Nearly one year after the revised Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct went into effect on July 1, 2015, the SJC confirmed that Rule 3.5(c) worked a change in practice, allowing attorneys to communicate with jurors without requesting permission from the trial judge. Still, in other important areas, some constraints on juror contact remain.
New Rule 3.5(c) was soon tested. In mid-July 2015, appellate counsel to Dwayne Moore sought to communicate with the jurors who had convicted Moore of murder in 2012. On July 14, 2015, two weeks after the effective date of revised Rule 3.5(c) and while Moore’s appeal was pending, defense counsel sent the Commonwealth the letter he planned to send the jurors. The proposed letter asked whether the jurors had been exposed to any extraneous information during the trial and deliberations, including information about the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Having received no response from the Commonwealth, defense counsel sent the letter to the jurors one week later. That same day, the Commonwealth’s attorney e-mailed defense counsel, notifying him that the Commonwealth would file a motion to prohibit juror contact, which it viewed as still impermissible under the revised rule.
In revising Rule 3.5 of the Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct to permit attorney originated communications with discharged jurors, did the Supreme Judicial Court implicitly overrule the prohibition against attorney originated communications with jurors as set forth in Commonwealth v. Fidler, 377 Mass. 192, 203-204, 385 N.E.2d 513 (1979)?
In generally adopting the American Bar Association’s Model Rule 3.5 containing the language ‘prohibited by law,’ did the Supreme Judicial Court intend Commonwealth v. Fidler to be continuing precedent?
If the answer to question two is ‘no,’ then what types of contact with discharged jurors by an attorney, if any, are ‘prohibited by law’ under Rule 3.5(c)(1)?
If the answer to question one is ‘yes,’ and the answer to question two is ‘no,’ does revised Rule 3.5 permit attorneys to communicate with jurors who were discharged prior to July 1, 2015?
If the answer to question four is ‘yes,’ in light of Commonwealth v. Fidler, are attorneys required to seek approval from the court prior to contacting jurors?
Commonwealth v. Moore, SUCR2011-10023 (July 27, 2015), slip op. at 13-14.
On the first question, the Court said that, in “adopting rule 3.5 (c), we effectively overruled our rule, first stated in Fidler, that prohibited attorney-initiated, postverdict contact of and communications with jurors free from court oversight.” Commonwealth v. Moore, 474 Mass. 541, 547 (2016). Second, the Court held that Fidler continues as precedent to the extent that, like Fidler, Rule 3.5(c) prohibits inquiries into the jury’s deliberations. More specifically, “prohibited contact and communication include those that violate common-law principles, such as inquiries into the substance of jury deliberations, and communications that violate statutory law, other court rules, or specific court orders.” Id. at 549. Finally, the Court held that Rule 3.5(c) applies to attorneys seeking to contact jurors discharged before July 1, 2015, the rule’s effective date, if the case was pending on appeal on July 1, 2015, or if the appeal period had not yet run. Id. at 551. If either of those conditions is met, no court permission is required to contact jurors discharged before July 1, 2015. Id.
Beyond simply answering the trial court’s questions, the SJC sought to provide procedural guidelines to counsel. Most notably, the Court required that a lawyer provide opposing counsel with five business days’ notice of the lawyer’s intent to contact the jurors. That notice should specify the proposed manner of communication and the substance of the inquiry, including, “where applicable, a copy of any letter or other form of written communication the attorney intends to send.” Id. at 551-552. The Court stated that the preferred method of juror contact is by written letter, which should include a statement that the juror may decline to respond to such communication. While the Court observed that opposing counsel may seek relief if the proposed communication appears improper, the Court sought to tamp down routine challenges to proposed communications, underscoring that “[o]ur mention of the availability of judicial intervention and relief is not intended to serve as an invitation to counsel to seek it as a matter of course.” Id. at 552.
Thus, lawyers in Massachusetts may now contact jurors without the permission or supervision of the trial court, including jurors discharged prior to July 1, 2015, if the direct appeal was then pending or the appeals period had not yet run. But before doing so, counsel must first provide opposing counsel notice of their intent to contact the jurors, and opposing counsel has an opportunity to move the court for relief. When counsel does make contact, he or she cannot inquire about the substance of the jury’s deliberations; that subject continues to be off-limits. Moore provided preliminary answers and guidance concerning the implementation of Rule 3.5(c). Whether there will be additional litigation surrounding lawyer-initiated postverdict contact with jurors remains to be seen.
Neil Austin is a partner in the litigation department of Foley Hoag LLP, where he specializes in commercial litigation and government investigations.
Caroline Donovan is an associate in the Litigation Department at Foley Hoag, where she maintains a practice in complex civil litigations and investigations.

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