Opinion ID: 2514196
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether an express agreement is necessary to form an attorney-client relationship

Text: ¶ 10 Langerman argues that, before an attorney-client relationship can form between an insurer and the counsel it retains to represent an insured, express mutual consent must be reached among all of the respective parties. We disagree. The law has never required that the attorney-client relationship must be initiated by some sort of express agreement, oral or written. Quite to the contrary, the current rule is described as follows: A relationship of client and lawyer arises when: (1) a person manifests to a lawyer the person's intent that the lawyer provide legal services for the person; and ... (a) the lawyer manifests to the person consent to do so. RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF THE LAW GOVERNING LAWYERS § 14. Indeed, comment c to section 14 indicates that either intent or acquiescence may establish the relationship. Even before adoption of section 14, our cases expressed a similar view. As a practical matter, an attorney is deemed to be dealing with a client when `it may fairly be said that because of other transactions an ordinary person would look to the lawyer as a protector rather than as an adversary.' In re Pappas, 159 Ariz. 516, 522, 768 P.2d 1161, 1167 (1988) (quoting In re Neville, 147 Ariz. 106, 111, 708 P.2d 1297, 1302 (1985)). Thus, a purported client's belief that [the lawyer] was their attorney is crucial to the existence of an attorney-client relationship, so long as that belief is objectively reasonable. Id. ¶ 11 Of course, we recognize that the circumstances of this case are materially different from those presented in Neville and Pappas, in which the relationship between lawyer and client evolved from business transactions. But neither our cases nor the RESTATEMENT takes the position that an explicit agreement is required to create an attorney-client relationship. Nor do we believe it would be good policy to adopt that view. Langerman erroneously relies upon Barmat v. John & Jane Doe Partners, 155 Ariz. 515, 747 P.2d 1214 (App.1986), and Parsons v. Continental Am. Group, 113 Ariz. 223, 550 P.2d 94 (1976), to support the proposition that an express agreement is necessary to form an attorney-client relationship. Neither Barmat nor Parsons, however, dealt with this precise question, and neither stands for that proposition. Instead, Barmat and Parsons address the issue of whether an attorney assigned by an insurer to represent an insured is under a primary duty to the insured, so that he must act in the insured's interest rather than that of the insurer. Both cases quite correctly hold that the attorney who represents an insured owes him undeviating and single allegiance whether the attorney is compensated by the insurer or the insured. Parsons, 113 Ariz. at 227, 550 P.2d at 98; Barmat, 155 Ariz. at 518, 747 P.2d at 1216 (internal quotes and citations omitted). ¶ 12 The rule set forth in RESTATEMENT section 14 and our cases is, we believe, the better view. Thus, we conclude the trial judge erred in holding that an express agreement was required either to permit Langerman to represent Paradigm or for an attorney-client relationship to have formed between the two.