Matrimonial Firm Got Zip after Discussing Divorce Case with Both Spouses
Attorney David J. Grund only met with David Newton for an hour or two. And, Grund said, he told Newton not to give him any confidential information, because he wouldn’t represent him in a pending divorce until a contract was signed.
But a state appellate court found that the 2007 consultation clearly conflicted Grund and his Illinois law firm, Grund & Leavitt, out of representing an adverse party in the same matter—Newton’s wife, Hadley, the ABA/BNA Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Conduct reports.
Upholding a trial court’s ruling on all fronts, the Illinois Appellate Court, First District, agreed both that the representation contract between Grund and Hadley Newton in effect never existed because it violated state attorney ethics rules and that it was not enforceable for the same reason.
There is an irrebuttable presumption in such a case, the court explained, that confidential material was shared between lawyer and client, whether or not it actually was or the lawyer has any recollection of the information or took notes. (Grund said he didn’t, as far as his conversation with David Newton was concerned.)
As a matter of public policy, “where the ethical rules have been violated and counsel has represented a party with conflicting, adverse interests, counsel’s purported good faith is irrelevant,” Justice Aurelia Pucinski wrote.
The court also found in its Oct. 14 opinion that the trial judge had correctly held attorneys for the law firm in contempt when they refused to step back from the bench, after being instructed to do so, after the denial of the fee petition.
