Hacker and His Victim Can Employ Same Lawyer, NJ Court Rules

In a case testing the bounds of attorney conflicts of interest, a New Jersey court is allowing a lawyer to represent both a hacker who stole online social media account information and the victim he targeted.

The Thursday ruling pits the international World Mission Society, Church of God against a church attendee who alleges a plot in which the church sought to investigate dissenters. The lawsuit claims the hacker—a third party defendant—was coerced by the church into creating web message boards for criticizing the organization and then using posters’ log-in information to access their social media accounts and find ...