Legal Ethics
Sex With Client’s Mom Requires Waiver
Posted Sep 5, 2007, 04:50 pm CDT
By Martha Neil
It may be OK for a lawyer to have sex with a client's mother—if the client approves the relationship in a written waiver of the conflict. But you can't ethically have sex with the client, unless the relationship got started prior to the representation.
That is the gist of a Wisconsin Supreme Court opinion that imposed a six-month suspension on attorney Carlos Gamino, for violating each of these rules—with two different clients. Although the Waukesha lawyer denied both relationships, the court upheld a referee's findings that Gamino had slept with one client, as well as another client's mother. It also sanctioned him for a lack of candor with the tribunal.
Gamino, who has now served his six-month suspension and is making payments on restitution of between $20,000 and $25,000 for court costs, was reinstated to the Wisconsin bar today, according to a brief item in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (scroll down).
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