MARYLAND STATE BAR ASSOCIATION, INC.
COMMITTEE ON ETHICS
ETHICS DOCKET NO. 2004-22
What must an attorney do with a settlement check where the client refuses to execute release or negotiate the check because of a child support lien?
In your letter, you tell us that a Plaintiff in a personal injury case, your client agreed to a resolution of the case through binding arbitration. In the course of the representation, you were notified of a claim against any recovery in the form of a child support lien. The arbitration took place and your client was awarded several thousand dollars. You forwarded the resulting checks and releases to your client, who refused to sign in protest of the child support lien which consumed his net recovery. Several years have passed, you have continued to forward requests to the client to execute the documents, but without success. Your client has moved, but you have been able to trace the client's whereabouts through social security number and date of birth that the client gave you in the course of your representation. You understand that there is now an out-standing warrant for your client and you presume that the warrant is based on the child support obligation. You understand that you can file an interpleader action to resolve he issue of entitlement to the proceeds of your client's recovery, but are concerned that doing so will disclose confidential information, i.e. the client's address, and ask the Committee for its opinion regarding this course of action.
As you know, the Committee has opined in the past that an interpleader action is an appropriate vehicle to resolve a conflict between a third party and a client over funds that an attorney holds in escrow. See: Opinion 2000-30. The facts you describe are somewhat different from those which we have addressed in the past where the attorney holds funds in escrow that are in dispute between a client and a third party because you have been unable to negotiate the check and hold it, not the funds it represents. Nevertheless, you, the lien holder and various health care providers all claim some portion of the funds. The Committee believes that Rule 1.15 allows you to file an action to properly adjudicate the entitlement of all parties to the proceeds of the recovery and to seek authority to negotiate the check and sign the releases necessary to consummate the arbitration. Rule 1.6 allows an attorney to disclose information necessary to establish a claim to a portion of the recovery and are entitled to disclose the information necessary to enforce your claim, the Committee does not believe that filing suit in an interpleader action where an attorney holds property in dispute between a client and a third party which discloses a client's address violates the prohibitions of Rule 1.6 even if the interpleader involves only the client and a third party, where the client's address was not a privileged communication, but was subsequently derived from facts disclosed to the attorney in the course of the representation. Opinions of the Committee may be obtained from the Maryland State Bar Association's website: www.msba.org.