In a Relationship? It’s Complicated: Achieving Harmony and Avoiding the Frustrations and Ethical Pitfalls of the National/Local Counsel Relationship

Attorneys working together on behalf of the same client or groups of defendants can greatly increase the quality and efficiency of representation for clients. But relationships take work, and without it, a dysfunctional marriage of defense counsel can result in conflicts, ethical dilemmas, inflated bills, mistakes, and diminished work product.

This presentation will bring together a panel of experienced lawyers who have spent many years working as national coordinating counsel, national trial counsel, local counsel, and in-house counsel. They will share their experiences, discuss considerations, and provide guidance associated with national/local counsel, trial teams, and joint defense relationships, including but not limited to, managing successful national/local counsel teams, coordination of trial teams, relationships between defense counsel, and joint defense agreements.

The panel will also break down the ethical implications of these relationships, including the scope of each attorney’s representation of the client (ABA MRPC 1.2), the requirements for client communications when clients are represented by multiple lawyers (ABA MRPC 1.4), avoiding relationships that could give rise to prohibited conflicts of interest (ABA MRPC 1.7), the requirement for each lawyer to exercise independent professional judgment and render candid advice (ABA MRPC 2.1), and maintaining the professional independence of each lawyer (ABA MRPC 5.4).