Opinion ID: 4535787
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: “Playbook” Approach

Text: Some courts have taken a “playbook” approach to disqualification. In Chugach Electric Ass’n v. United States Dist. Court for District of Alaska, 370 F.2d 441, 442 (9th Cir. 1966), an attorney brought an antitrust action against a corporation where he had previously served as general counsel. Despite no showing that the lawyer “‘had access to secret or confidential information related to the issues’” in the case, the Ninth Circuit disqualified him. Id. at 443. It did so because the lawyer’s general representation of the corporation could “provide him with greater insight and understanding of the significance of subsequent events in an antitrust context and offer a promising source of discovery.” Id. That was 1966. Since that time, the model rules have changed. The RPC and ABA Model Rule comments now flatly reject this “playbook” approach to disqualification motions. RPC 1.9 cmt. 2 (“[A] lawyer who recurrently handled a type of problem for a former client is not precluded from later representing another 22 No. 97563-9 client in a factually distinct problem of that type even though the subsequent representation involves a position adverse to the prior client.”), cmt. 3 (allowing representation despite “general knowledge of the [organizational] client’s policies and practices”).