Opinion ID: 2227403
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Duty to Act Loyally

Text: The assignment of a legal malpractice claim is perhaps most incompatible with the attorney's duty of loyalty. An attorney's loyalty is likely to be weakened by the knowledge that a client can sell off a malpractice claim, particularly if an adversary can buy it. If an attorney is providing zealous representation to a client, the client's adversary will likely be motivated to strike back at the attorney in any permissible fashion. If an adversary can retaliate by buying up a client's malpractice action, attorneys will begin to rethink the wisdom of zealous advocacy. A legal system that discourages loyalty to the client, disserves that client. While attorneys probably remain protected from their client's opponents as long as they please their client, even happy client relationships have been known to spawn malpractice claims. See Christison, 83 Ill. App.3d 334, 339, 39 Ill.Dec. 560, 563, 405 N.E.2d 8, 11 (trustee of estate of a happy but bankrupt client brought malpractice action against bankrupt's attorney). If assignments were permitted, we suspect that they would become an important bargaining chip in the negotiation of settlements  particularly for clients without a deep pocket. An adversary might well make a favorable settlement offer to a judgment-proof or financially strapped client in exchange for the assignment of that client's right to bring a malpractice claim against his attorney. Lawyers involved in such negotiations would quickly realize that the interests of their clients were incompatible with their own self-interest. The court in Washington has suggested that attorneys representing such clients would be bound by loyalty to sacrifice their own hides (and the deep pockets of their malpractice insurance carriers) in order to secure a favorable settlement for their client. [7]