Opinion ID: 1921960
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Need to Protect the Public, the Courts and the Legal Profession.

Text: In support of its proposed sanction of a public censure, the Hearing Committee noted that this is a unique case, stating it was completely confident in predicting that the underlying factual situation will not be repeated in the near or distant future. Hearing Committee Report at 41. We agree that it is highly unlikely that Respondent or any other member of our Bar would be faced with an identical fact pattern; so we can understand why the Hearing Committee, in the thick of the trees, might conclude that a public censure would be adequate to protect the public and the legal profession from this particular abuse in the future. We are a few steps removed from the trees; we are able to see a forest. Having seen the cases of attorney dishonesty that have been flowing through our system, we think it is not unlikely that some members of our Bar will be faced with a matter where a client or a friend in a difficult position seeks their assistance in resolving a dispute between two people with conflicting interests such that the attorney must balance the Rules governing the protection of client confidences against the Rules governing a conflict of interest. When that choice is presented, a light bulb must go off that an attorney has an ethical duty to immediately withdraw from the representation if the client does not permit the attorney to disclose a confidence. Good intentions and creative justifications of an alternative course of action will not suffice. The sanction that we recommend underscores the fact that when that choice involves the per se conflicts of interest rule, an attorney has an ethical obligation to act timely and in a manner that maintains a level of integrity.