Opinion ID: 2549623
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Ciaffone clarified in part

Text: First, petitioners contend the district court misapplied this court's decision in Ciaffone. They assert that Ciaffone does not automatically require disqualification of lawyers whenever they hire a nonlawyer who had access to an adverse party's privileged or confidential information during previous employment. Petitioners argue that Ciaffone stands for the proposition that the disqualification remedy is only available if the district court first determines that a lawyer's employee gained privileged and confidential information about an adverse party as a result of former employment. Petitioners contend that mere access to the adverse party's file during the former employment is insufficient to warrant disqualification. We agree. Ciaffone recognized that the prohibitions against the unauthorized disclosure of confidential information encompassed in SCR 156 and 159(2) apply to an attorney's nonlawyer employees through SCR 187, which requires lawyers to hold their nonlawyer employees to the same professional standards applicable to attorneys. [10] We held that the imputed disqualification requirements for attorneys and firms under SCR 160 apply to nonlawyer employees of an attorney or firm. [11] Thus, if a nonlawyer possesses privileged information, imputed disqualification should apply whenever the nonlawyer accepts employment with a firm or attorney who represents a client with a materially adverse interest to the former client. However, despite the statements in the opinion indicating that imputed disqualification does not apply if the nonlawyer employee did not obtain confidential information in the prior employment, [12] the facts in Ciaffone infer that mere exposure to a client's file is sufficient to warrant disqualification. In Ciaffone, the nonlawyer's involvement with the prior client's case was limited to some work in a secretarial, word processor capacity. [13] The opinion is silent on whether or not this exposure related to privileged or confidential information. Instead, the opinion seems to suggest that any exposure to a client's file is sufficient to invoke imputed disqualification. We therefore take this opportunity to clarify that the imputed disqualification standards of SCR 160(2) do not apply simply because a nonlawyer employee was exposed, or had access to, a former client's file. The rule only applies when the nonlawyer employee acquires privileged, confidential information.