Court Opinion

ID: 9491811
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:24:26.738733+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:57.407047
License: Public Domain

dissenting:
I join in Judge Tjoflat’s well-reasoned dissent. A review of both the majority opinion and Judge Tjoflat’s response highlight the difficulty in interpreting rules designed to resolve ethical problems. Lawyers who must analyze professional responsibility issues frequently have to chose between the law of ethics and the general law. Thus, a choice of law problem is presented. In resolving that selection process, particularly where ethical concerns arise, one of two approaches may be taken. Since law consists of rules to solve problems, a fortiori, one can analyze the rule or one can analyze the problem to which the rule is directed. Stated differently, does one apply the rule as written or does one apply the rule in accord with its purpose.* The analyze-the-rule approach works when- the facts are within the rule’s jurisdiction, but fails when the facts are beyond the rule’s jurisdiction. How then should such a determination be made?
I submit that a workable test for determining whether the facts are within the jurisdiction of a rule of ethics is whether the application of the rule creates a dilemma for the lawyer. Thus, problems of professional responsibility within a rule’s jurisdiction tend to be simple ones; problems not within the rule’s jurisdiction tend to be dilemmatic. Accordingly, when the problem is simple, the analyze-the-rule approach is adequate; when the problem is dilemmatic, the analyze-the-problem approach is most productive. In the foregoing analysis by the majority, the wrong approach to analysis has been pursued because it emphasizes the analyze-the-rule approach where the facts are outside of the rule’s jurisdiction. In the fact problem set out in this case the lawyers were clearly dual fiduciaries with respect to several clients. Their situation was manifestly dilemmatic. As Judge Tjoflat’s persuasive analysis concludes, a dual fiduciary cannot negate the right of one beneficiary to benefit another beneficiary. Freund’s lawyers were burdened by irreconcilable conflicts of interest that rendered their representation constitutionally defective.

 L. Ray Patterson, Lawyer's Law: Procedural Malpractice and Disciplinary Issues (Matthew Bender 1998).