Conflict of interest during closing

[raypol]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Maine
I reside in PA and am Power of Attorney for mother in law selling house in Maine.
Her attorney is from Maine and the buyer's attorney is from Maine.
She sold property to a family member.
Two attorneys are form same town and know each other.
I advised that any communication between me and the lawyers will not be shared with the buyer; they do not need to know other family business.
I communicated with her attorney and directly at times with the buyer's attorney - nobeody objected to communication as long as we were all copied.
The buyer's attorney ended up copying the buyer's son on an email strand of communication between the two attorneys and me.
Buyer's attorney said sorry but the information confidential was now available to other family members.
Can i get anything more than a sorry from the buyer's attorney?

 

[Ohiogal]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Maine
I reside in PA and am Power of Attorney for mother in law selling house in Maine.
Her attorney is from Maine and the buyer's attorney is from Maine.
She sold property to a family member.
Two attorneys are form same town and know each other.
I advised that any communication between me and the lawyers will not be shared with the buyer; they do not need to know other family business.
I communicated with her attorney and directly at times with the buyer's attorney - nobeody objected to communication as long as we were all copied.
The buyer's attorney ended up copying the buyer's son on an email strand of communication between the two attorneys and me.
Buyer's attorney said sorry but the information confidential was now available to other family members.
Can i get anything more than a sorry from the buyer's attorney?

NO. Quite frankly when you communicated with the buyer's attorney you had no right to confidentiality. The buyer's attorney works for the buyer. You are lucky you even got an apology.

ETA: And you might not even have confidentiality with your mother's attorney.

 

[justalayman]

Can i get anything more than a sorry from the buyer's attorney?

like a Christmas card maybe?



You won't get any money if that is what you are asking.

I advised that any communication between me and the lawyers will not be shared with the buyer; they do not need to know other family business.

do you realize what an attorney is? They are a representative of their client. If you are talking to the lawyer, you are talking to the client

 

[tranquility]

NO. Quite frankly when you communicated with the buyer's attorney you had no right to confidentiality. The buyer's attorney works for the buyer. You are lucky you even got an apology.

ETA: And you might not even have confidentiality with your mother's attorney.

I agree with the buyer's attorney statement, but want to clarify the mother's attorney one. While I also believe there would be no attorney/client privilege for the communications made with mother's attorney (in that it could be discoverable), I believe the attorney has a duty of confidentiality to the communications in that he should not ethically disclose them. (As OP was mother's attorney in fact.)

 

[Ohiogal]

I agree with the buyer's attorney statement, but want to clarify the mother's attorney one. While I also believe there would be no attorney/client privilege for the communications made with mother's attorney (in that it could be discoverable), I believe the attorney has a duty of confidentiality to the communications in that he should not ethically disclose them. (As OP was mother's attorney in fact.)

You contradict yourself. Either the information is discoverable or it is confidential. One or the other.

 

[Mass_Shyster]

You contradict yourself. Either the information is discoverable or it is confidential. One or the other.

I disagree. Not all information covered by Rule 1.6 is privileged.

 

[justalayman]

I believe Tranq was referring to confidential, as in the ethics perspective and not privileged, as in discoverable or not.

While I also believe there would be no attorney/client privilege for the communications made with mother's attorney (in that it could be discoverable), I believe the attorney has a duty of confidentiality to the communications in that he should not ethically disclose them. (As OP was mother's attorney in fact.

)

just stabbing at stuff here but as I understand it, privileged communications are confidential but not all confidential communications are privileged communications.

 

[tranquility]

I believe Tranq was referring to confidential, as in the ethics perspective and not privileged, as in discoverable or not.


)

just stabbing at stuff here but as I understand it, privileged communications are confidential but not all confidential communications are privileged communications.

Exactly right.

From http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/professional_responsibility/39th_conference_session_11_confidentiality_and_atorney_client_privilege.authcheckdam.pdf

3. The Duty of Confidentiality and the Attorney-Client Privilege . One might fairly question whether the Tekni-Plex parties, and the court, badly con-flated the ethical duty of confidentiality with the attorney-client privilege. The former, which is grounded in agency and fiduciary law, is a rule of professional responsibility. The latter is an evidentiary privilege. Although both principles seek, at their core, to permit the client to control confidences shared with his or her lawyer, the duty is far broader than the privilege. DR 4-101(B) of the New York Code of Professional Responsibility, 68 as in effect when Tekni-Plex was decided, generally prohibited a lawyer from knowingly revealing a confidence or secret of a client, or using a confidence or secret to the client’s disadvantage, without the client’s consent.
69 DR 4-101(A) defined “confidence” as “information protected by the attorney-client privilege under applicable law.” 70
To that extent, the duty to protect confidences and the evidentiary attorney-client privilege are co-terminus. But DR 4-101(A) defined “secret” as “other information gained in the professional relationship [presumably not privileged] that the client has requested be held in-violate or the disclosure of which would be embarrassing or would be likely to be detrimental to the client.” 71 DR 5-108(A)(2) effectively extended the benefit of DR 4-101, requiring the non-disclosure of client confidences, to former clients.
72

68. N.Y. COMP. CODESR. & REGS. tit. 22, § 1200.19 (2008) .
69. Model Rule 1.6 is, of course, even broader. It prohibits a lawyer from disclosing, again subject
to certain exceptions and absent client consent, “information relating to the representation,” see MODEL
RULES OFPROF ’ LCONDUCTR. 1.6 (2008), a term substantially broader than New York’s former terms of
“confidences” and “secrets.” Indeed, information relating to the representation applies not only to mat-
ters communicated in confidence by the client but also to information, otherwise non-public, acquired
from sources other than the client.
70. N.Y. COMP. CODESR. & REGS. tit. 22, § 1200.19 (2008) .
71. Id .
72. Id. § 1200.27 . Model Rule 1.9(c)(2) does the same with respect to “information relating to the
representation” required to be kept confidential by Model Rule 1.6. See MODELRULES OFPROF ’ LCONDUCT
R. 1.9(c)(2) (2008).
73. United States v. United Shoe Mach. Corp., 89 F. Supp. 357 (D. Mass. 1950).

 

[You Are Guilty]

My NY radar went off. Why am I in a thread with a Maine-based OP?

Stupid Bat-signal never works right.

 

[tranquility]

While the model rules are not in all the states, the ABA did seem to discuss things in general. Heck, they used a MA case to make the point.