{"id":1110,"date":"2004-08-26T10:48:19","date_gmt":"2004-08-26T14:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2004\/08\/legal_ethics\/"},"modified":"2004-08-26T10:48:19","modified_gmt":"2004-08-26T14:48:19","slug":"legal_ethics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2004\/08\/legal_ethics\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal Ethics"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a question about something I saw last night. Perhaps a legally-minded reader can shed some light on this.
\nCNN’s Wolf Blitzer was interviewing attorney Benjamin Ginsberg<\/a> on the latter’s resignation from working for Bush\/Cheney ’04. Blitzer appeared to be fishing to see if he could get Ginsberg to admit that the Bush campaign knew that the attorney was simultaneously working for the Swift Boat Veterans:<\/p>\n

BLITZER: Did you tell people at the Bush-Cheney campaign that you were also giving legal advice to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth?
\nGINSBERG: Not until yesterday with the exception of a conversation on the legalities, a generic conversation of legalities of representing both campaigns and 527 groups. But nobody at the Bush campaign or the White House knew of my dual representation, which is appropriate under the legal ethics rules.
\nBLITZER: Since you were working for the campaign earlier, wouldn’t it have been appropriate first to ask the campaign, do you have a problem if I also give advice to this other Swift Boat group?
\nGINSBERG: Well, Wolf, I didn’t do that for three reasons. The first is that the legal ethics rules really require lawyers not to talk to different clients about the work that they’re performing for other clients.
\nNumber two, the campaign finance laws have strict provisions on any coordination, so to even raise the subject could potentially jeopardize my clients. And number three, starting months before I ever did this, my Democrat colleagues were doing precisely the same thing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s true that legal ethics may prohibit specific discussions of the work you are performing for other clients, but this prohibition doesn’t preclude you from disclosing who those other clients are<\/i>. Indeed, in cases where there is a potential conflict of interest between clients, ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.7 (b)(4)<\/a> requires that the lawyer obtain the client’s consent for the dual representation in writing.
\nGranted, Ginsberg’s representation of both Bush\/Cheney and the Swift Boat Veterans doesn’t present a typical conflict of interest scenario–here the problem was that the client’s interests are too<\/i> similar, rather than conflicting. But it seems to me the same principles should still apply. Because as the resignation made clear, his dual representation interfered with his ability to represent a client.
\nAnyway, this reason for not telling Bush\/Cheney of the Swift Boat Veterans seems strange to me; I’m wondering if anyone has a different take on this ethical issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a question about something I saw last night. Perhaps a legally-minded reader can shed some light on this. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was interviewing attorney Benjamin Ginsberg on the latter’s resignation from working for Bush\/Cheney ’04. Blitzer appeared to be fishing to see if he could get Ginsberg to admit that the Bush campaign […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}