Press releases on public discipline issued by the BPR can be something of an art form and sometimes, but not always, don’t tell the whole story. So setting aside any tea-leaf reading that might otherwise go into this one involving what sounds like a situation in which a lawyer was perhaps unknowingly used by clients to assist with some hinky efforts to shield assets, the reference to RPC 2.2 as being among the rules violated raises a fine opportunity to remind Tennessee lawyers about another trap for the unwary.
Tennessee is one of only two U.S. jurisdictions (Mississippi is the other) that still has such a rule on their books. RPC 2.2 is pattered upon an ABA Model Rule that was quickly scuttled after adoption by the ABA. As such, the existence of RPC 2.2 in Tennessee presents both a blessing and a curse.
If you are aware of it, and understand when it applies, it is a blessing because it makes excruciatingly clear what needs to be in your engagement letter with your various clients, what you need to say about your role, what your duties and obligations are, and when you have to terminate representing any of the clients because the situation has blown up. If you are not aware of its existence, then it’s a curse because, given its very detailed requirements, a lawyer could find themselves incorrectly looking to RPC 1.7 and complying with those provisions to try to obtain informed consent to a joint representation only to learn later that s/he followed the wrong rule altogether.
For the lawyer involved, and the fact that this whole set-up apparently turned out to involve a gratuitous transfer, this might have become a second-level trap as Comment [4] to RPC 2.2 indicates that where what is going on is a gratuitous transfer, RPC 1. 7 and not RPC 2.2 is the relevant rule with which to comply.
But, for everyone other than the lawyer involved, this still presents a decent teachable moment to remind Tennessee lawyers that if you are undertaking to represent multiple parties in an undertaking that involves “provid[ing] impartial legal advice and assistance” to multiple parties who “are engaged in a candid and non-adversarial effort to accomplish a common objective with respect to the formation, conduct, modification, or termination of a consensual legal relations between them,” then your engagement would be as an intermediary and RPC 2.2 is the rule on point. RPC 2.2 thoroughly details how to determine whether you have a conflict that would prevent undertaking the representation at all, what you need to do to go about getting informed consent of the multiple clients involved, and what the rules of the road are for the engagement going forward.