When dealing with clients at any law firm, there are some ethical considerations that need to be looked at. There are also some practice of law that would be unauthorized or unacceptable. It is therefore important to ensure there is good guidance on every task that is undertaken and ensure that competent lawyers are the people serving clients. In the Big box and value Mart case preparations and representations there are some loopholes that might amount to unauthorized practice of law, bring up conflict of interest or interfere with ethical rules of practice. This essay aims to highlight opportunities of unauthorized practice of law and the provisions of law on the same.
Ethical Issues on Legal Tasks
One of the tasks assigned to Peter Paralegal is to prepare initial interview questions for Big Box and Value Mart clients. This is an important task because it helps to identify the client’s problems and gather facts that would help to solve the problems through a court case. It also brings the opportunity of to develop a relationship of trust ad open communication between the lawyer and the client ( Corman Aaron, 2013 ). However, Peter might not be in a position to conduct initial client interview because he is not a lawyer and he lacks the integrity to review clients’ files that would help prepare the interview. The interview should only be prepared by a lawyer because he or she will know the important information that would help in solving the problems of the clients.
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Representing and Defending the Client
Peter can prepare the agreement documents for the two clients on behalf of the law firm provided he is not personally liable to the client. By preparing the fee agreement document and explaining it to the clients, the law firm will be committing to represent and defend the clients in all disputes, negotiations and proceedings out of court and in curt. Therefore, if the task of fee agreement is completed, the law firm will start to provide legal services to the clients. The fees charged to the clients should cater for the time spent in fulfilling the assignment, the qualifications and experience of the attorney and the resources required in fulfilling the assignment ( Geraghty, 2017).
Considering Peter is working on behalf of the law firm and has a supervising attorney, he has the duty to collect all the relevant information and documents from the client that will help in preparing the case. He will also participate in gathering facts that would help to build a court case. However, Peter or the law firm cannot amend, or update any information, opinions or documents without the consent of the client, or due to development of a case law ( Suni, 2015).
Conflict Of Interest
A conflict of interest, might arise in a law firm if there is a substantial risk that the lawyers representation of the clients would be materially and adversely affected by the lawyers own interests or by the lawyers duties or another current client, a former client, or a third person ( Suni, 2015 ). In this case, case there would be conflict of interest in representing big box and value mart companies because they are competitors. It would be difficult to serve as an independent lawyers realizing that the companies are rivals. Establishing trust and open communications with the two clients might be impossible.
ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct
According to the American bar association, a positional interest might occur when a lawyer represents one client in a matter in which the clients’ interests with respect a substantive legal issue are directly adverse to positions the attorney is advocating on behalf of another client on the same or similar issue ( Geraghty, 2017) . This raises major ethical issues, for instance, if the two cases are being argued in the same court, will it affect the influence or the capabilities of the lawyer on the cases. The honest law firms might be in a positional conflict because the two cases are almost similar and there are possibility they will be handled by the same court. Therefore the lawyer’s advocacy will be impacted. It would therefore be recommendable for Honest law firm to pick one case and refuse there other to avoid conflict of interest.
References
Corman Aaron, M. (2013). Client Science: Advice for Lawyers on Initial Client Interviews. SSRN Electronic Journal . doi:10.2139/ssrn.3001925
Geraghty, P. (2017). Ethics of positional conflicts. Retrieved from https://www.americanbar.org/publications/youraba/2017/may-2017/the-ethical-issues-surrounding-positional-conflicts.html
Suni, E. Y. (2015). Conflicts of Interest. Retrieved from https://www.americanbar.org/newsletter/publications/gp_solo_magazine_home/gp_solo_magazine_index/conflictsofinterest.html
