When you spend a lot of time consulting with and advising lawyers, finding teachable moments from examples of things that happen in real life are extremely helpful.
The world can be filled with teachable moments. On a non-ethics front, here is one: If you don’t pay attention to when a credit card has a new expiration date and update accordingly, you could end up having your domain briefly expire leaving you vulnerable to someone else potentially buying it.
On an ethics front, the importance of making sure you do what you can to make clear in an engagement letter who is and who is not your client, as well as what you are being hired to do versus other things someone might later try to claim were your responsibility is pretty high. As a result, paying attention to outside counsel guidelines or other documents that may come into your firm from a client that address those issues is extremely important.
A February 2019 case from the Federal Circuit stands as a very good teachable moment about how not paying attention to such things can lead to disqualification. If you practice in a law firm of any significant size, the full opinion is worth reading because it addresses not only the topics mentioned but also involves a fact pattern involving lateral movement that, ultimately, resulted in the disqualification proceedings coming to pass in the first place. Specifically, the lawyers who moved from another firm to Katten Muchin and brought with them their representation of a party adverse to a corporate parent of Bausch & Lomb in the first place were only ever informed that Katten Muchin was representing Bausch & Lomb.
The disqualification of the law firm of Katten Muchin in the lawsuit of Dr. Falk Pharma Gmbh et al. v. Generico, LLC et al. truly came about, however, because the firm did not push back on outside counsel guidelines it received that expanded the universe of what could constitute a conflict of interest (or, more realistically, didn’t pay attention at any true level that such was occurring).
The underlying moving parts of litigation are pretty detailed and intricate and involve patent litigation and trademark matters, part of which (I only mention to bring a satisfying end to the attempt at humor in my title) involved a dispute over the trademark MOISTURE EYES™.
If you want a more thorough understanding of the intellectual property issues in play in the various proceedings, you can get that over at Mike McCabe’s blog here.
For our purposes today, w/r/t the teachable moments, the following excerpts from the opinion ought to be able to drive home the importance of knowing what is in engagement letters that come from clients rather than emanate from your firm and knowing the details of any outside counsel guidelines being incorporated into any engagement letter:
The motions to disqualify stem from Katten’s representation of Bausch & Lomb Inc. … a corporate affiliate of Valeant-CA and Salix, in a trademark litigation and its concurrent representation of Mylan, adverse to movants, in the pending appeals. Specifically, Katten signed an engagement letter with Bausch & Lomb that broadly defined Katten’s client as any Valeant entity. Attorneys [Mukerjee and Soderstrom] represented Mylan during various stages of [these proceedings] first, as attorney from Alston & Bird LLP, but later, as attorneys from Katten. The parties agree that Mukerjee and Soderstrom moved to Katten as of May 3, 2018.
[snip]
In the course of representing Bausch & Lomb, Katten signed a general engagement letter “governing the overall relationship between [Katten] and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc…. This engagement letter incorporates by reference Valeant’s Outside Counsel Guidelines (“OC Guidelines…”
[snip]
The OC Guidelines also specify that “Valeant expects a significant degree of loyalty from its key external firms,” defined as “firms with 12 month billings exceeding one million dollars.” These key firms should “not represent any party in any matters where such party’s interests conflict with the interests of any Valeant entity.”
[snip]
On May 3, 2018, Mylan notified the district court that Mukerjee and Soderstrom had left Alston & Bird to join Katten. On May 25, 2018, Valeant-CA filed a motion to disqualify Katten in the district court action.
[snip]
Because the engagement letter creates an ongoing attorney-client relationship between the law firm, Katten, and its organizational clients, Valeant-CA and Salix, Katten’s representation of Mylan adverse to movants in Valeant II gives rise to a concurrent conflict of interest under Rule 1.7.
[snip]
Finally, we conclude that Katten’s erection of an ethical wall is insufficient to resolve its violation of Rule 1.7. Katten claims that this wall cordons off Mukerjee and Soderstrom from Katten attorneys who have worked for matters for Bausch & Lomb, Valeant-CA, or affiliates in the 18 months preceding May 7, 2018. But this wall does nothing to address concerns stemming from Katten’s violation because it was created after Mukerjee and Soderstrom joined Katten, it applies only partially to work conducted within 18 months before May 7, 2018, and Katten never previously informed movants of any potential conflict.
Now, in fairness, even without the engagement letter terms and the OC Guidelines, the outcome may have been the same because, as the opinion explains, the corporate entities involved here were so interrelated in terms of common infrastructure and shared legal departments, and financial interdependence as to be treated as amounting to corporate affiliates still subject to treatment as clients under conflict of interest rules. But that is another teachable moment issue for a different day.