Selected Ohio Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 1.3 Diligence, Lecture notes of Business

Download Selected Ohio Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 1.3 Diligence and more Lecture notes Business in PDF only on Docsity! Selected Ohio Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 1.3 Diligence A lawyer shall act with reasonable diligence and promptness in representing a client. OFFICIAL COMMENT [1] A lawyer should pursue a matter on behalf of a client despite opposition, obstruction, or personal inconvenience to the lawyer. A lawyer also must act with commitment and dedication to the interests of the client. Rule 1.7 Conflict of interest: current clients (a) A lawyer's acceptance or continuation of representation of a client creates a conflict of interest if either of the following applies: *** (2) there is a substantial risk that the lawyer's ability to consider, recommend, or carry out an appropriate course of action for that client will be materially limited by the lawyer's responsibilities to another client, a former client, or a third person or by the lawyer's own personal interests. OFFICIAL COMMENT General Principles [1] The principles of loyalty and independent judgment are fundamental to the attorney-client relationship and underlie the conflict of interest provisions of these rules. Neither the lawyer's personal interest, the interests of other clients, nor the desires of third persons should be permitted to dilute the lawyer's loyalty to the client. All potential conflicts of interest involving a new or current client must be analyzed under this rule. In addition, a lawyer must consider whether any of the specific rules in Rule 1.8, regarding certain conflicts of interest involving current clients, applies. For former clients, see Rule 1.9; for conflicts involving those who have consulted a lawyer about representation but did not retain that lawyer, see Rule 1.18. [analogous to Model Rule Comment 1] *** Personal Interest Conflicts [20] Types of personal interest. The lawyer's own interests should not be permitted to have an adverse effect on representation of a client. For example, if the probity of a lawyer's own conduct in a transaction is in serious question, the lawyer may have difficulty or be unable to give a client detached advice in regard to the same manner. …. *** [22] Sexual activity with clients. A lawyer is prohibited from engaging in sexual activity with a current client unless the sexual relationship predates the formation of the client-lawyer relationship. See Rule 1.8(j). [Model Rule Comment 12] Rule 1.8 Conflict of interest: current clients: specific rules **** (j) A lawyer shall not solicit or engage in sexual activity with a client unless a consensual sexual relationship existed between them when the client-lawyer relationship commenced. (k) While lawyers are associated in a firm, a prohibition in divisions (a) to (i) of this rule that applies to any one of them shall apply to all of them. OFFICIAL COMMENT *** Client-Lawyer Sexual Relationships [17] The relationship between lawyer and client is a fiduciary one in which the lawyer occupies the highest position of trust and confidence. The relationship is almost always unequal; thus, a sexual relationship between lawyer and client can involve unfair exploitation of the lawyer's fiduciary role, in violation of the lawyer's basic ethical obligation not to use the trust of the client to the client's disadvantage. In addition, such a relationship presents a significant danger that, because of the lawyer's emotional involvement, the lawyer will be unable to represent the client without impairment of the exercise of independent professional judgment. Moreover, a blurred line between the professional and personal relationships may make it difficult to predict to what extent client confidences will be protected by the attorney-client evidentiary privilege, since client confidences are protected by privilege only when they are imparted in the context of the client-lawyer relationship. Because of the significant danger of harm to client interests and because the client's own emotional involvement renders it unlikely that the client could give adequate informed consent, this rule prohibits the lawyer from engaging in sexual activity with a client regardless of whether the relationship is consensual and regardless of the absence of prejudice to the client, unless the sexual relationship predates the client-lawyer relationship. A lawyer also is prohibited from soliciting a sexual relationship with a client. [18] Sexual relationships that predate the client-lawyer relationship are not prohibited. Issues relating to the exploitation of the fiduciary relationship and client dependency are diminished when the sexual relationship existed prior to the commencement of the client-lawyer relationship. However, before proceeding with the representation in these circumstances, the lawyer should consider whether the lawyer's ability to represent the client will be materially limited by the relationship. See Rule 1.7(a)(2). [19] When the client is an organization, division (j) of this rule prohibits a lawyer for the organization (whether inside counsel or outside counsel) from having a sexual relationship with a constituent of the organization who supervises, directs, or regularly consults with that lawyer concerning the organization's legal matters. Imputation of Prohibitions [20] Under division (k), a prohibition on conduct by an individual lawyer in divisions (a) to (i) also applies to all lawyers associated in a firm with the personally prohibited lawyer. For example, one lawyer in a firm may not enter into a business transaction with a client of another member of the firm without complying with division (a), even if the first lawyer is not personally