MARYLAND STATE BAR ASSOCIATION, INC.
COMMITTEE ON ETHICS
ETHICS DOCKET NO. 2006-16
Conflicts of Interest: Whether lawyer who previously reviewed titles for sufficiency under Maryland transfer provisions for title company as “consultant” is prohibited from representing a spouse in a divorce action twenty-two years later when the marital property at issue includes property whose title was reviewed by the lawyer twenty-two years earlier.
Your letter requesting an opinion of the Ethics Committee of the Maryland State Bar Association has been considered by the Committee, and I have been designated to respond to you on its behalf.
You explain that early in your practice, in 1984, you were a consultant to a title company. Your task was to sign the deed as a member of the Maryland bar. You previously received a ruling from the ethics committee in 1984 which provided that you had no obligation to review the underlying settlement transactions and that your only obligation in the transaction was to look over the four corners of the instrument and make sure that the deed met the formalities of Maryland transfer law.
When you performed these duties, the title company would send you a number of deeds by messenger. You would then review them to make sure they were acceptable, and return them to the title company after signing. You performed these duties for about a year, and never had any direct contact with parties to the deeds.
Eventually you terminated your relationship with this title company, because you discovered that they had forged your name on some deeds. The owner of the company was successfully prosecuted.
Now, 22 years later, you have discovered that a client who you are representing in a divorce proceeding was party to a deed signed by you in 1984. You represent the wife, who owns the relevant property with her husband as joint tenants by the entirety.
You did not have any direct contact with the couple in 1984.
You have asked whether your continued representation of the wife in the divorce proceeding presents a conflict of interest under the Maryland Lawyers’ Rules of Professional Conduct.
This Committee has addressed the role of an attorney who has a relationship with a title company, or provides them some service several times. See Ethics opinions 1984- 76; 1993-40; 1994-31; 2001-7.
Based on the facts as you have presented them to us, and the previous opinions of this Committee, it does not appear that you had or have any lawyer-client relationship with the husband and wife with regard to your review of their deed in 1984.
It also does not appear that you have any continued relationship or obligation to the title company that would limit in any way your responsibilities to your proposed client, the wife.
However, there may still be a potential conflict. Rule 1.7 of the Maryland Rules of Professional Conduct governs conflicts of interests in situations where parties may have divergent interests. Paragraph (b) of the Rule states:
(b) A lawyer shall not represent a client if the representation of that client may be materially limited by the lawyer’s responsibilities to another client or to a third person, or by the lawyer’s own interests, unless:
(1) the lawyer reasonably believes the representation will not be adversely affected; and
(2) the client consents after consultation.
Therefore, based on the facts as you have presented them to us, if the deed were to become an issue in the divorce proceeding, it may represent a potential conflict of interest that would require you to reevaluate your ability to continue representation of the wife in the divorce proceeding.
For members of the Maryland State Bar Association, opinions of the Committee may be obtained from the Committee’s website: www.msba.org.
We hope the foregoing is responsive to your inquiry and we thank you for consulting the Committee on this matter.
REFERENCES:
- Rule 1.7
- Ethics opinions: 1984-76; 1993-40; 1994-31; 2001-7.
ASSIGNED TO: Ariana Wright Arnold
DATE ASSIGNED: March 14, 2006
DATE DISTRIBUTED:
- April 17, 2006
- June 28, 2006