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

Heading: The Duty to Maintain Confidentiality

Text: An attorney's duty to maintain the confidences of a client is also threatened by the assignment of legal malpractice claims. Whenever an attorney is sued by a client, the attorney is permitted to reveal confidential client information reasonably necessary to establish a defense. Ind. Professional Conduct Rule 1.6(b)(2). So long as the client retains control over the suit, the scope of the disclosure can be limited by the client's power to drop the claim. Once the client assigns the claim, however, the client's control over the litigation is lost, but the attorney's right to defend himself or herself by revealing client information survives. The client is relegated to observing from the sidelines as the assignee pursues the attorney. If the attorney reasonably responds to the assignee's claim by revealing information the client would have preferred remain confidential, the client cannot prevent the attorney's disclosures. Clients who anticipate this possibility would be no better off than those who are blind-sided by it. Far-sighted clients would be encouraged to withhold damaging information from their attorney in order to preserve their ability to sell off a malpractice claim without the fear of losing control over that information. This result erodes the principles fostered by the duty of confidentiality. Rules which discourage an attorney from acting loyally and confidentially toward a client should not be erected without very good cause. Some argue that allowing malpractice claims to be sold on the market would increase their value and promote more such lawsuits. [8] An increase in malpractice claims, they argue, would better discipline the bar. There is no evidence to suggest, however, that the threat of client-driven malpractice claims does not already affect lawyer behavior. Free assignment of malpractice claims might add marginally to the efficiency of collecting on such claims, but it would also do harm in countless other client-lawyer relationships in which no malpractice has occurred. Unlike any other commercial transaction, the client-lawyer relationship is structured to function within an adversarial legal system. In order to operate within this system, the relationship must do more than bind together a client and a lawyer. It must also work to repel attacks from legal adversaries. Those who are not privy to the relationship are often purposefully excluded because they are pursuing interests adverse to the client's interests. For example, Picadilly's relationship with attorneys Raikos and Thomas was maintained for one purpose  to defeat Colvin's tort suit against Picadilly. To say that Colvin was not part of Picadilly's client-lawyer relationship throws too benevolent a light on Colvin's true role as Picadilly's adversary. Colvin, after all, was the antagonist who drove Picadilly to seek out the protection offered by the client-lawyer relationship. [9]