Court Opinion

ID: 9463107
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:58:11.063627+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:01.864280
License: Public Domain

MANSFIELD, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
I concur in the result but on a somewhat more limited basis than that indicated in Judge Oakes’ characteristically thorough and thoughtful opinion.
I agree that Randall’s representation of appellant Bregman was plainly improper. It is beyond dispute that the matters about which he was consulted by Bregman were substantially related to those concerning which he had represented his former clients, ORG and NCK, as their house counsel. Under established precedent in this circuit, it must be presumed that in the course of these representations confidences were imparted to Randall by his clients, which automatically precluded his later representation of Bregman with respect to substantially the same subject matter. Emle Industries, Inc. v. Patentex, Inc., 478 F.2d 562, 570 (2d Cir. 1973); Consolidated Theatres v. Warner Brothers, 216 F.2d 920 (2d Cir. 1953); T. C. Theatre Corp. v. Warner Bros. Pictures, 113 F.Supp. 265 (S.D.N.Y.1953).
Disqualification of the Weil firm, however, must stand on a different footing since it never had an attorney-client relationship with ORG or NCK and hence cannot be presumed to have come into confidential information from them as their attorney. The question is whether a new counsel is to be automatically disqualified from representing Bregman because the *136new counsel talked with a disqualified lawyer (Randall).
In Hull v. Celanese Corp., 513 F.2d 568 (2d Cir. 1975), we held that a law firm seeking to represent a lawyer in a suit against the latter’s former client was disqualified, apparently on the theory that it could be presumed that, as a client, the lawyer-client would impart to her counsel information received in confidence from her former client.1 The Hull decision may be explained on the basis of the egregious circumstances of that case and the strong likelihood that, despite conscientious efforts on the part of the law firm to avoid transferral of confidential information, some confidence would be disclosed by its client, who had worked as attorney for Celanese on the very lawsuit against it in which she now sought to intervene as a party. In short, the appearance was plainly a bad one. As we there stated, however,
“The scope of this opinion must, of necessity, be confined to the facts presented and not read as a broad-brush approach to disqualifications.” 513 F.2d 572.
I believe that the same caveat should issue in the present case. I concur in the result only because it is undisputed that Randall, who was clearly disqualified, had engaged in fairly extensive discussion of the case with the Weil firm, giving advice to that firm and to Bregman. Under the circumstances, I cannot say that it was an abuse of discretion for Judge Motley to have exercised the district court’s supervisory power to disqualify the Weil firm. However, I would not subscribe to an ironclad rule automatically presuming that a disqualified lawyer has disclosed confidences to a firm which was not in an attorney-client relationship with the other side. While an automatic taint may be a salutary method of enforcing ethical principles against an attorney who personally acted in a fiduciary capacity for an adversary, it smacks of an overkill to extend such a taint to a new counsel brought in by him to represent someone else. Whether the disqualification is to be extended to the new firm should turn on the circumstances surrounding his consultation of that firm and particularly the nature and extent of the communications between the disqualified lawyer and the new firm. If, for example, the disqualified lawyer’s sole connection with the new firm were, because of his own disqualification, to act as an intermediary in asking it to represent the client, the appearance of the situation would not in my view require an extension of the taint.

. Although the opinion states that it “should not be read to imply that . . . Delulio [the client and former attorney for Celanese] cannot pursue her claim” against Celanese, 513 F.2d at 572, it is difficult to understand how Delulio could accomplish this when, as the decision holds, both she and any counsel representing her would be automatically disqualified.