What is conflict of interest?

[Devastated Mom]

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? Ohio
If a Lawyer represents you in a Divorce and 4yrs later another family member uses that same lawyer against you is that conflict of interest on the Lawyers part?

[badapple40]

Originally Posted by Devastated Mom

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? Ohio
If a Lawyer represents you in a Divorce and 4yrs later another family member uses that same lawyer against you is that conflict of interest on the Lawyers part?

Depends. When did the divorce end? What is the new matter about? Is there a possibility of the lawyer in the new matter using any confidential information he obtained from/about you in the divorce with respect to the new matter?

[Devastated Mom]

Ohio
The Divorce never happened I dismissed the case after we did all the financial stuff. Now the lawyer who did this for me is representing my son(who was a minor at the time of the divorce) in a civil case agaisnt me. The lawyer knows more about me than my own lawyer does. And I think I still owe him money.

[badapple40]

Originally Posted by Devastated Mom

Ohio
The Divorce never happened I dismissed the case after we did all the financial stuff. Now the lawyer who did this for me is representing my son(who was a minor at the time of the divorce) in a civil case agaisnt me. The lawyer knows more about me than my own lawyer does. And I think I still owe him money.

Thank you for not answering my questions. Did you not understand the questions? Were they unclear? Allow me to rephrase.

What is the new matter about?
Please note, I didn't ask only who sued who. And I assumed it was civil. What, specifically, is the case about? Did you hit him with your car? Did you not pay back a loan he gave you? Did you beat him as a child or molest him and he is now suing you for it? I need more information, and you need to be very specific about what the new case is about. What I'm really after is whether anything occurred in the previous case that the lawyer is or could use against you in this case?

To repeat, I want to know "Is there a possibility of the lawyer in the new matter is using any confidential information he obtained from/about you in the divorce with respect to the new matter?"

The disciplinary rules in Ohio provide:

DR 4-101. PRESERVATION OF CONFIDENCES AND SECRETS OF A CLIENT.

(A) "Confidence" refers to information protected by the attorney-client privilege under applicable law, and "secret" refers to other information gained in the professional relationship that the client has requested be held inviolate or the disclosure of which would be embarrassing or would be likely to be detrimental to the client.

(B) Except when permitted under DR 4-101(C), a lawyer shall not knowingly:

(1) Reveal a confidence or secret of his client.

(2) Use a confidence or secret of his client to the disadvantage of the client.

(3) Use a confidence or secret of his client for the advantage of himself or of a third person, unless the client consents after full disclosure.

(C) A lawyer may reveal:

(1) Confidences or secrets with the consent of the client or clients affected, but only after a full disclosure to them.

(2) Confidences or secrets when permitted under Disciplinary Rules or required by law or court order.

(3) The intention of his client to commit a crime and the information necessary to prevent the crime.

(4) Confidences or secrets necessary to establish or collect his fee or to defend himself or his employees or associates against an accusation of wrongful conduct.

(D) A lawyer shall exercise reasonable care to prevent his employees, associates, and others whose services are utilized by him from disclosing or using confidences or secrets of a client, except that a lawyer may reveal the information allowed by DR 4-101(C) through an employee.

[stevek3]

Originally Posted by Devastated Mom

Ohio
The Divorce never happened I dismissed the case after we did all the financial stuff. Now the lawyer who did this for me is representing my son(who was a minor at the time of the divorce) in a civil case agaisnt me. The lawyer knows more about me than my own lawyer does. And I think I still owe him money.

Please...You KNOW you still owe him money. Anyway, best case scenario, the guy is exercising poor judgment. He's walking a mighty fine line. All I can figure is he will take whatever business he can now get. Perhaps this is because he had trouble getting his previous clients to pay his bills.

[Devastated Mom]

Ohio. Yes I know I still owe him money because he sent me a statement stateing I still owed him $250.00. And I did nothing to my son. He was a great kid from day one. Our family went trough some problems due to me having brain surgery, but it was nothing agaisnt my children. It's a very long and difficult story. But I never in my wildest dreams would of imagined my son doing this to me. But now his girlfriends mother YES. Why ??? I thnk she thinks we have a ton of money, because we have a business. We own one truck and haul used cars for auctions for a living. She has had it for me from day one. I have only met her once in person. She has already pressed charges on me for (get this) Breaking the Patriot Act over a cell phone # that her and my son ported out without my permission. And when I ask questions about what they did she called the police and sent a Dectective here I had to explain to the Det exactly what I did to find out how they got the # changed and he researched it himself and came to a conclusion that she had no reason to press these charges so he went back to her and adviced her to drop them. Because she was charging me with a Federal offence and there was no basis for her case. And if anyone had a case I did for her terminating my contract with the cellphone company.That really pissed her off so she has been gunning for me ever since.I left it alone from there. and the only way I could talk to my is if I caught him on the internet because he would not answer my phone calls. He and her have even accused me of hacking into thier computor I can barly use my own computor and my so knows that.