Law firm appeals ruling that ex-client can discover communications with in-house counsel
A former client of Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis has won a round in a New York malpractice suit.
But the law firm is appealing a trial court ruling that requires Schnader Harrison to turn over internal communications between its general counsel and attorneys to plaintiff Keith Stock, reports the New York Law Journal (sub. req.).
A former executive of MasterCard Advisors, Stock says Schnader Harrison failed to advise him that a departure agreement the firm helped him negotiate with his employer would accelerate the expiration of his stock options. Then, when that issue belatedly came to light, the firm pointed him toward litigation against MasterCard and arbitration with its option-plan administrator rather than a potential malpractice suit, he contends. Also at issue is testimony by Stock’s lawyer during arbitration.
“Law firms, I’m sure, will be paying attention to this case because the law is not clear in New York,” attorney Howard Elman of Matalon Shweky Elman, who is not involved in the case, tells the legal publication. “Conflict of interest cases are coming up more and more in litigation, and I think conflict scenarios are the classic type of things that lawyers will go to their general counsel about. The notion that a general counsel’s communications with an attorney can be open for discovery is not good one” for law firms.”
