A lawyer who leaves a firm doesn’t have to accept clients from that outfit if there’s no agreement to do so, the New York State Bar Association said.
“For the most part,” the bar’s ethics committee said in a June 19 opinion, “a lawyer’s duty of care to clients dies with the end of the attorney-client relationship,” and a lawyer “owes only certain discrete obligations to former clients.”
A lawyer posed the question after his old firm sent him files for matters he’d worked on. He returned the files, explaining that he didn’t represent the clients. But the firm re-sent them, allegedly telling clients that he was handling their cases.
The previous firm can’t “unilaterally impose such a relationship without the agreement of the lawyer and the client,” the opinion said.
The lawyer still has to make sure to follow professional conduct rules for former clients, which include not revealing confidential information and avoiding conflicts, it said.
The opinion is is N.Y.S. Bar Ass’n Comm. on Prof’l Ethics, Op. 1195, 6/19/20.
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