Court Opinion

ID: 9627761
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:53:32.601007+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:49.705689
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I concur in the result.
An attorney who is designated of counsel to a law firm should be subject to the same rules as a partner or associate of the firm for conflicts purposes. This is a bright-line rule. We need not inquire into the particulars of the of counsel relationship in question.
Attorney Eliot G. Disner held himself out to the public as “of counsel” to the firm of Shapiro, Rosenfeld & Close, i.e., as having a “close, personal, continuous, and regular” relation with the firm. (Rules Prof. Conduct, rule 1-400(E), std. (8).) He must, accordingly, be considered a member of the firm for purposes of the vicarious disqualification rule, whatever the minutiae of how he and the rest of the Shapiro firm handled their billings and payroll.
It appears that there was a conflict of interest, albeit a brief one, between the interests of Disner, who received confidential information from and advised Mobil Oil Corporation, and the rest of the Shapiro firm, which was simultaneously associated as counsel for interveners in the same matter. Hence, the Shapiro firm must be disqualified per se. This, too, is a bright-line rule. As has previously been explained: “The paradigmatic instance of . . . prohibited dual representation—one roundly condemned by courts and *1157commentators alike—occurs where the attorney represents clients whose interests are directly adverse in the same litigation.” (Flatt v. Superior Court (1994) 9 Cal.4th 275, 284, fn. 3 [36 Cal.Rptr.2d 537, 885 P.2d 950]; see Rules Prof. Conduct, rule 3-310.) A simple conflicts check would have avoided the problem. (See Weil & Brown, Cal. Practice Guide: Civil Procedure Before Trial 1 (The Rutter Group 1998) ¶ 1:71, pp. 1-19 to 1-20.)
I write separately because, in my view, this matter involves a straightforward question of law, not of fact. The majority suggest, in my view incorrectly, that it matters how long the conflict herein lasted, how promptly Mobil sought to disqualify Disner, and whether attorneys from the Shapiro firm actually had access to Mobil’s confidences. The precise details of the interactions between Disner and the Shapiro firm and their clients are not the point. Nor are we called upon to parse declarations by the attorneys that they did not discuss the merits of the action or intend to do so. Regardless whether any attorneys in the Shapiro firm apart from Disner were actually exposed to Mobil’s confidences or instituted any formal “ethical screen” to preserve confidentiality, disqualification in these circumstances was automatic, as a breach of the twin duties of loyalty and confidentiality owed by an attorney to his client.
For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeal should be reversed.