MARYLAND STATE BAR ASSOCIATION, INC.
COMMITTEE ON ETHICS
ETHICS DOCKET NO. 2011-08
Whether former public official may represent clients in matters arising during course of tenure as public official
Your inquiry was considered by the Committee on
Ethics of the Maryland State Bar Association and I have been assigned to
respond on its behalf.
You have asked the Committee for an opinion as to
whether it believes you can represent a Maryland non-stock corporation in a
matter involving its request for public information under the Maryland Public
Information Act. The corporation sought
the information, but the request was denied.
You wish to represent the corporation in an appeal of that decision. The
information the corporation seeks involves several matters pending before a
local government entity. Until recently,
you were an officer of that entity, holding a position that exercised
executive, legislative and quasi-judicial powers. The public information request seeks to
inspect all public records (excluding discovery material) received by the
entity, its agents, employees and attorneys after November 1, 2010 from the Plaintiffs,
their agents, employees and attorneys arising out of, in relation to or
connection with the lawsuits that were
commenced prior to November 1, 2010 against the public entity that you
served. You left office on November 30,
2010. Thus, your tenure on the entity overlaps the time period of the request
by about 30 days. You advise us that you have never practiced law with a firm
or law firm; that you have never represented any of the entities involved in
the public information act request; that you did not participate “personally
and substantially” in connection with any public records received after
November 1, 2010 involving the various parties to the lawsuit; and that you
were not privy to any confidential information involving the public entity that
could be used to its disadvantage in this action that demands the release of
information under the State’s public records laws.
The Committee believes the Rules of Professional
Conduct prohibit you from representing the corporation in this matter without
the consent of the public entity. As you
know, other laws regulating the conduct of public officials may also affect
whether you can participate in these matters; while these laws are beyond the
purview of the Committee, Rule 1.11(e)(2) requires that you abide by them. The issues involved in your request are
somewhat unique as most states that have considered Rule 1.11 and our own prior
opinions deal with attorneys who were acting as attorneys in their government
position. Because you were acting as a
public official, but not as an attorney, the Committee must consider how the
rule applies to persons holding positions in government service other than
attorney positions.
Rule
1.11 of the Rules of Professional Conduct provides:
(a) Except as law may otherwise expressly
permit, a lawyer who has formerly served as a public officer or employee of the
government:
(1)
is
subject to Rule 1.9(c);
and;
(2)
shall not otherwise represent a client in connection with a matter in which the
lawyer participated personally and substantially as a public officer or
employee, unless the appropriate government agency gives its informed consent,
confirmed in writing, to the representation.
*
* *
(c) Except as law may otherwise expressly
permit, a lawyer having information that the lawyer knows is confidential
government information about a person acquired when the lawyer was a public
officer or employee, may not represent a private client whose interests are
adverse to that person in a matter in which the information could be used to
the material disadvantage of that person. As used in this Rule, the term
“confidential government information” means information that has been
obtained under governmental authority and which, at the time this Rule is
applied, the government is prohibited by law from disclosing to the public or
has a legal privilege not to disclose and which is not otherwise available to
the public. . . .
* * *
(e) As used in this Rule, the term
“matter” includes:
(1)
any judicial or other proceeding, application, request for a ruling or other
determination, contract, claim, controversy, investigation, charge, accusation,
arrest or other particular matter involving a specific party or parties, and
(2) any other matter
covered by the conflict of interest rules of the appropriate government agency.
Because you were a public officer holding the public
entity’s highest office, unless another law expressly permits, you fall within
the ambit of Rule 1.11(a)(1) making you subject to Rule 1.9(c) and you may fall
within the ambit of Rule 1.11(a)(2) if you participated personally and
substantially in a matter connected with your proposed representation.
Rule 1.9(c) provides:
(c) A lawyer who has formerly represented a client in a matter or
whose present or former firm has formerly represented a client in a matter
shall not thereafter:
(1) use information relating to the representation to the
disadvantage of the former client except as these Rules would permit or require
with respect to a client, or when the information has become generally known;
or
(2)
reveal information relating to the representation except as these Rules would
permit or require with respect to a client.
As noted previously, you tell us that you “did not
participate personally and substantially in public records received by the
entity after November 1, 2010.” While
the Committee takes your statement of facts as given, the statement that you
did not participate personally and substantially in the receipt of the sought
after information argues a result that does not seem consistent with the intent
of the Rules because it separates receipt of information from the existing
lawsuits as if receiving information about the suits constitutes a different
matter from the suits to which the information relates. Apparently, you believe that because you did
not receive public records that a suit to obtain public records could never be
the same matter as the matter to which the records relate. The Committee does not agree. For example, if you acted in a quasi-judicial
capacity in deciding a zoning case, the fact that you did not personally
receive some or all of the records associated with that case would not lessen your
role as having participated personally and substantially in the case and a
public information request for records of the case are not so foreign to the
underlying zoning case as to constitute a separate matter. See:
Rule 1.11, Comment 10 discussed hereafter.
Furthermore, as discussed later, you did participate personally and
substantially in the decisions that led to the lawsuits. The Rule itself (Rule
1.11(e)) defines “matter” broadly and includes any judicial or other proceeding
or controversy and any other matter covered by the conflict of interest rules
of the appropriate government agency.
Comment 10 to Rule 1.11 helps to understand what the
Rule intends by telling us that two or more matters can be the same based on
whether they have the same basic facts, parties and elapsed times:
For purposes of
paragraph (e) of this Rule, a “matter” may continue in another form.
In determining whether two particular matters are the same, the lawyer should
consider the extent to which the matters involve the same basic facts, the same
or related parties, and the time elapsed.
In the context of the corporation’s requests for
information about lawsuits that were filed against the public entity during
your tenure and which were all pending when your term ended, the Committee
believes that any information about those suits involving periods during your
term of office are the same matter for purposes of Rule 1.11. While not
required to opine on whether it would reach a similar result if the request for
information was solely for information received subsequent to your term, the
Committee suspects that it would.
But, Rule 1.11 does not prevent your representation
even if these are the same “matters” unless you participated personally and substantially on behalf of the public entity in the matter while
you were a public official.
Other states have attempted to address this issue
with differing results. For example, in
Texas its Supreme Court considered whether an attorney should be disqualified
based on prior government service. The
attorney had been chairman of the Industrial Accident Board for several
years. Nine days before her tenure
ended, she was advised of an accident that occurred involving one of the
Board’s employees and suggested that the Board check to make sure similar
accidents did not occur due to defective equipment. She entered private practice and represented
the employee in a workers’ compensation claim involving the accident and her
firm represented the employee in a lawsuit under the state’s tort claims
act. The state sought to disqualify her
firm. The Texas Supreme Court reversed
an intermediate appellate court by concluding that Texas’ equivalent rule to
Md. Rule 1.11 was adopted to ease the limitations on attorneys reentering
private practice after government service.
Rule
1.10, the governing standard, prohibits representation of a private client by a
former government attorney in two circumstances: (i) when the subsequent
representation involves “a matter in which the lawyer participated personally
and substantially as a public officer or employee,” unless the government
agency consents, or (ii) when the subsequent representation is adverse to a
legal entity about whom the lawyer acquired “confidential government
information” while a public officer or employee. Id. Rule 1.10(a)
and (c). This disqualification does not, however, extend to other members of
the firm if the former government attorney is screened from any participation
in the matter and is not apportioned any of the resulting fee. Id. (b)
and (d).
In
applying Rule 1.10, the court of appeals concluded that as the IAB’s
“legal advisor, Ms. Maisel is presumed to have participated personally and
substantially in the case.” 790 S.W.2d at 59. While the predecessor to
Rule 1.10, barring private employment in a matter in which a former government
attorney had “substantial responsibility,” might permit such a
construction, the new rule does not. The rule applicable to successive
government and private employment states explicitly that there must be personal
and substantial participation. This “hands-on” involvement
cannot be imputed based on title of office or the existence of statutory
authority. The same is true on the question of whether Maisel had
“confidential government information,” as the rule operates only when
the former government attorney has “actual as opposed to imputed
knowledge.” Tex.Disciplinary Rules of Prof. Conduct, Rule 1.10 comment 7
(1989). Although our state legislature may adopt “revolving door”
statutes that impose a presumption of conflict of interest by barring former
employees of state agencies from representing certain clients before that
agency for a specified time period, see, e.g., Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann.
art. 1446c § 6(i) (Vernon Supp.1990), there are none in effect applicable to
Maisel. [Footnotes omitted. All emphasis in original.]
Spears v. Fourth Court
of Appeals, 797 S.W.
2d 654, 657 (Tx. S.Ct. 1990). The
Committee agrees with the Texas Supreme Court that Rule 1.11 moves the analysis
of whether the rule limits post government representation away from whether a
government official or employee had “substantial responsibility” for a matter
while employed in government service to a determination whether the employee
participated personally and substantially in a matter while a government
officer or employee. The distinction
between your situation and that of the attorney in Texas is that the attorney
in Texas had no active involvement on behalf of the agency in the claim by the
employee, rather she was simply notified of the claim and directed the agency to
inspect other equipment to make certain other similar cases did not arise.[1]
In your situation, you actively participated in making decisions that
affected the Plaintiffs in the underlying lawsuits that helped to generate the
lawsuits and you participated on the legal entity that was sued during the time
the entity mounted its defense to those lawsuits. Also, see Security
General Life Ins. Co. v. Superior Court In and For Yuma, 149
Ariz. 332,334 718 P.2d 985, 987 (Ariz.,1986)
reaching a similar conclusion but on different facts.
In Docket 2000-19, this Committee
reviewed the applicability of Rule 1.11 to a request by a former County
Attorney to represent a client in a number of different capacities. The Committee discussed the meaning of Rule
1.11 and concluded that the attorney was precluded from representing the client
in most of those capacities. In doing
so, the Committee quoted from an earlier opinion 94-15 (unfortunately, the
opinions at www.msba.org were scanned and are
to some extent corrupted, so you will not find on the bar’s website the
following language in 94-15 as it originally appeared), to help understand the
meaning of Rule 1.11 and its development.
We quote from Docket 2000-19 below to help analyze the Rule’s intent and
its meaning:
“Prior to January 1, 1987,
DR 9-101(B) of the Code of Professional Responsibility established the
following ethical constraints upon former government attorneys: “A lawyer
shall not accept private employment in a matter in which he had substantial
responsibility while he was a public employee.” ABA Code of
Professional Responsibility DR 9-101(B) (emphasis added). Under DR 9-101(B),
the term “substantial responsibility’ was considered by this Committee
“to encompass those situations wherein an attorney has been clothed with
supervisory authority, whether exercised or not, in the handling of
controversies or administrative matters over which another of his staff has had
primary responsibility.” See Opinion 79-74.
“Various policy considerations were offered in
support of the proscriptions contained in DR 9-101(B) , including avoiding the
apparent treachery of switching sides, safeguarding confidential governmental
information, discouraging government lawyers from handling particular assignments
in such a way as to encourage their own future employment after leaving
government service, and, in general, avoiding the appearance of impropriety. See
ABA Formal Opinion 342 (1975).
“On the other hand, those who examined DR 9-101(B)
cautioned that the rule should not be interpreted so broadly as to preclude or
limit substantially a lawyer’s employment after he or she departed from
government service.[2]As a consequence, the term “substantial responsibility” was
generally deemed to involve:
a much closer and more direct relationship than
that of a mere perfunctory approval or disapproval of the matter in question.
It contemplates a responsibility requiring the official to become personally
involved to an important, material degree, in the investigative or deliberative
processes regarding the transaction or facts in question. Thus, being the chief
official in some vast office or organization does not ipso facto give
that government official or employee the ‘substantial responsibility’
contemplated by the rule in regard to all the minutiae of facts lodged within
the office. Yet it is not necessary that the public employee or official shall
have personally and in a substantial matter investigated or passed upon the
particular matter, for it is sufficient that he had such a heavy responsibility
for the matter in question that it is unlikely he did not become personally
and substantially involved in the investigative or deliberative processes
regarding the matter.
“ABA Formal Opinion 342 at 10-11. (Emphasis added)
(footnotes omitted).
* **
“In comparing the language of Rule 1.11 with that
of DR 9101(B), it is clear that Rule 1.11 eliminates the “appearance of
impropriety” test of DR 9-101(B) and “sets forth more specifically
the circumstances in which concern for public confidence in government
necessitates disqualification of a lawyer.” Law. Man. on Prof. Conduct
(ABAIBNA) 91:4008 (July 23, 1986). Thus, under Rule 1.11, a former government
attorney must have “personally and substantially” worked on the matter
in order to be disqualified from working on the case.
“However, in this Committee’s view, this change in
language was intended to mitigate harsh results which evolved from an overbroad
interpretation of the language “substantial responsibility” under DR
9-101(B), see, e.g., City ofCleveland v. Cleveland Electric
Illuminating Co., 440 F. Supp. 193 (N.D. Ohio), aff’d without op., 573
F.2d 1310 (6th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 996 (1978), and was
intended to articulate a standard comporting with the ABA interpretation of the
language “substantial responsibility” in its Formal Opinion 342
quoted above.[3]
”Hence, in evaluating whether you may represent the
prospective client, this Committee finds guidance in the language used in the
ABA opinion quoted above and also finds persuasive the analysis contained in
certain well reasoned decisions addressing motions to disqualify former
government lawyers from involvement in subsequent civil litigation. One case,
in that regard, is particularly instructive. In that case, LaSalle National
Bank v. County ofLake, 703 F.2d 252 (7th Cir. 1983), the Court
addressed a motion to disqualify a law firm which employed a former Lake County
Assistant State’s Attorney as an Associate. In evaluating the Motion, the Court
applied what it referred to as the “substantial relationship test”
“to give judicial content to the obligations imposed upon attorneys by the
professional canons governing their conduct.” LaSalle National Bank, 703
F.2d at 255.
“In that case, the Court found that there was a
substantial relationship between the matter -brought by the private law firm and
the Assistant State’s Attorney’s former representation of Lake County, even
though the Assistant State’s Attorney (during his public employment) was not
involved in the precise subject of the litigation, relying, in part, upon the
fact that the Assistant State’s Attorney was the “principal legal advisor
with respect to all civil matters, supervising an office with only six
attorneys in it. .
.” and “.
. .. was clearly privy to a substantial amount of discussion and strategic
thinking [about sewage agreements, the subject matter of the civil litigation] . . .” Id. 703 F.2d at
256.[4]
“The Court also noted that:
The substantial relationship standard does not
require that a party moving to disqualify point to or reveal a particular piece
of confidential information which the attorney challenged actually received;
its receipt will be presumed in circumstances which make it a likely
possibility. Id. at 256 (citations omitted).
[Footnotes
in original 2000-19 are included but renumbered.]
In applying these
analyses to your situation, we understand that you made certain decisions
affecting the Plaintiffs’ zoning or subdivision plans either directly or by
amending the comprehensive plan. These
decisions led the Plaintiffs to sue the entity you served. During your tenure,
the entity mounted a defense to those suits and held meetings to discuss
settling those suits. All the while you
acted as a member of the board served by the attorney for the entity and it was
the board that directed the defense of the suits. As noted previously, you told us that you did
not participate personally or substantially in the receipt of information, but
you did not advise us if you participated personally and substantially in the
lawsuits or the decisions triggering the lawsuits while acting as a public
official. Instead, you referred us to
three articles available via the Internet. A review of these articles and a subsequent
Internet search confirms that you were personally and substantially involved in
at least one of the lawsuits. Two of the articles reflect that you voted
against closing a meeting to discuss settlement of one of the suits and that
you boycotted the subsequently closed meeting.
Nevertheless, the articles reflect that you took positions on the
lawsuits and in an earlier article referring to the same controversy you
discussed your participation in the underlying decision leading to the lawsuit
and seemingly urged the Plaintiffs to sue the entity if they didn’t like its
decision. While you may have taken a
position different from the majority of those elected to serve the public
entity, you clearly took a position and despite not attending a closed session
seeking settlement of the lawsuit, you actively participated in the
“matter.” While your involvement in the
other two cases does not appear to be addressed in the articles, the Committee
assumes that you were as actively interested in those projects as you were in
the one discussed in the articles and believes that your involvement was both
personal and substantial.
You should also note
that Rule 1.11(e)(2) requires that you construe your involvement in this matter
in conjunction with any government ethic rules that regulate conflicts of
interest. Thus, if the government ethics
rules regarding conflicts would prohibit you from representing the client in
this matter, doing so would also be a violation of Rule 1.11.[5]
Other states have also
discussed Rule 1.11. The Alaska Bar Association Ethics Committee addressed the
question of to what extent could a former government attorney who had not been
acting for the government in the capacity of an attorney accept private
employment representing clients in matters involving the attorney’s former
employer. That Committee concluded that
in some matters such as drafting regulations or making policy, the attorney was
not precluded by Rule 1.11, but in other matters such as transactions with
identifiable parties the attorney would be precluded from representing clients:
We conclude that ARPC
1.11(a) does not prohibit a lawyer who participated personally and substantially as a
government officer or employee in making policy or in drafting or implementing
regulations from representing a private client in connection with issues
related to that policy or those regulations. However, ARPC 1.11(a) does prohibit a lawyer from representing a private client
in connection with a discrete transaction or set of transactions between
identifiable parties in which the lawyer participated personally and substantially as a public
officer or employee, regardless of whether the lawyer’s previous public duties
were those of a government lawyer or those of a government official who did not
have the duties of a lawyer.
We further conclude that work done by the lawyer’s government employee
subordinates does not disqualify the lawyer from representing a private client
unless the lawyer participated personally and
substantially in the matter in question while in public service.
AK Eth. Op. 95-2, 1995
WL 928996 (Alaska Bar.Assn.Eth.Comm.)
Whether this Committee
would agree that a former government official could draft regulations, make
policy or implement regulations and then challenge them as described by the
Alaska Committee seems unlikely in light of our opinion 2000-19.
The Pennsylvania
Committee on Ethics was asked to decide if a former public official was barred
from seeking records under that state’s public records laws using the former
employment as the disqualifier. In that
opinion, the requester was not asking for records involving a matter that was
adverse to the former employer and the Committee opined that based on the facts
the attorney was not disqualified.
As you have presented the facts, you are
not in litigation with, or otherwise adverse to, your former employer over the
substance of the requested documents, nor are you representing a client in a
matter in which you participated personally and substantially.
Furthermore, a request under a statutory enactment seems to be an express
authorization by law.
PA Eth. Op. 96-122, 1996 WL 935277
(Pa.Bar.Assn.Comm.Leg.Eth.Prof.Resp.)
From the opinion, it appears that the Pennsylvania Committee would view
the issue differently if the attorney were seeking public information about a
matter in which the former government attorney had been involved personally and
substantially while a government official.
This Committee also makes the same distinction.
The Committee perceives distinctions between the
purpose of Rule 1.11 as applied to Public Information Act requests and other
types of litigation similar to the Pennsylvania Committee, but like the
Pennsylvania Committee, the Committee believes that you cannot represent a
client with interests adverse to the entity you served involving matters in
which you participated personally and substantially as a public official
without violating Rule 1.11. While you
advise us that you are taking this representation “pro bono” the rules make no
distinction in their applicability to the size of or lack of a fee the attorney
charges. In the case of the “revolving
door” limitations, the rules intend among other goals to prevent attorneys from
profiting improperly from moving in and out of government service and using
knowledge gained thereby for their personal interest and also to protect
persons dealing with government from having government officials with “inside
information” using that information against them. These goals taken together provide assurance
to the public that public officials are acting in their best interests at all
times whether the “public” is the public at large or a more discrete cohort of
the public having specific business with the government.
Rule 1.11 also requires that you conform to Rule
1.9(c). That rule deals with preserving
confidential information. The
Committee construes the design and structure of Rule 1.11 and Rule 1.9(c) to
apply to government officials in such a way as to prevent a government official
from using confidential information gained as a government official in the
representation of a client to the disadvantage of the official’s government
entity both during the official’s tenure and following that tenure or to reveal
confidential information gained as a government official except as the Rules
permit. Because most government
information is public, there may be few situations to which this limitation
applies. Clearly, there are some
situations where a government official obtains confidential information and
they include privileged information as well as other information protected
under the Public Information Act. See, generally: SG, §§10-615,
10-616, 10-617, and 10-618. The
Committee cannot decide for you what is or is not protected information under
the Act or decide for you what is confidential, all it can do is advise you
that revealing confidential information you gained as an officer of the public entity
violates Rule 1.9(c) and using confidential information you gained as an
officer of the public entity to the disadvantage of the public entity violates
Rule 1.9(c) to the extent the Rules do not otherwise permit or require. The fact that the entity you served is
resisting the request for public information, at least tacitly, suggests it
believes that some of the information is confidential information, if the
entity is correct you would violate Rule 1.9(c) by disclosing it and you would
violate Rule 1.11(a), (c) and (e) by using that information against the entity
or the Plaintiffs.
Rule 1.11(a)(2) allows
you to represent a client in matters not affected by the prohibitions of Rule
1.9(c) if you obtain the informed consent of the entity in writing. Thus, subject to Rule 1.9(c), you can request
the entity waive any conflict under these rules; provided, however, your local
ethics law does not prohibit this engagement.
In conclusion, it is
the consensus of the Committee that under Rule 1.11 a former public official
who participated personally and substantially in a matter while acting as a
public official cannot thereafter act as counsel to a party seeking public
information about the matter without obtaining the informed consent in writing
of the public entity the official represented.
Further, it is the consensus of the Committee that under Rules 1.9(c)
and Rule 1.11(c) a former public official who gains confidential information
while acting as a public official may not thereafter disclose that confidential
information to anyone, or use that confidential information to the disadvantage
of the public entity or those from whom it was derived. Because you were integrally involved in
making decisions that led to lawsuits and were a member of the governing body
of an entity sued over those decisions, under Rule 1.11(a) you cannot represent
a third party in a public information act case to seek records about the
lawsuits arising out of those matters which were being defended by the
governing body of which you were a part while you were a member without the
informed written consent of the public entity. In addition, to the extent the governing body
obtained confidential information while you were a member, that information is
protected by Rule 1.9(c) against your using that information against the public
entity you served and to the disadvantage of it or to the disadvantage of those
about whom the information pertained. Finally, you cannot represent a party against
another when that representation involves confidential information about the
third party and which you obtained while a government official without
violating Rule 1.11(c).
The
Committee hopes it has addressed your inquiry and thanks you for your
interest. Our opinions are available on
line at www.msba.org.
[1] The Committee
might not reach the same conclusion on the same facts as the Supreme Court of
Texas if asked about a similar issue in Maryland and reference to this case
should not be seen as the Committee’s agreement that a government attorney can
leave government service and sue the attorney’s agency for a claim that arose
during the attorney’s tenure when the attorney was advised of the claim and had
responsibility for and acted in response to it.
[2] “Although not
specifically purporting to analyze DR 9-101(B), various courts recognized that
motions to disqualify former government attorneys and the firms with whom they
become associated could be misused as a weapon to interfere with the clients’
ability to select counsel of their choosing. Panduit Corp. v. All States
Plastic Mfg. Co., 744 F.2d 1564, 1577 (Fed. Cir., 1984); Whiting
Corp. v. White Machinery Corp.. 567 F.2d 713, 715 (7th Cir., 1977); and General
Electric Co. v. Industra Products, Inc.. 683 F. Supp. 1254, 1259 (N.D. Ind.
1989).”
[3]
“The language in the current rule also comports with the language contained in
18 U. S. C. §207 (a) (1) (B) containing restrictions on government employees
(including lawyers) in matters in which the employees “participated
personally and substantially. . .””
[4]“
This Committee recognizes that one could distinguish between the standards
which govern under the rules of ethics and the standards which may be applied
by the courts in a litigation context but believes that cases such as LaSalle
National Bank do provide guidance as to a lawyer’s ethical duties,
particularly since case authorities teach us that attorney disqualification is
a “prophylactic device”, which should not be imposed unless
“absolutely necessary”. See,e.g., Panduit Corp. v. All
States Plastic Manufacturing Co. , 744 F. 2d 1564, 1581 (Fed. Cir.
1983) and General Electric Co. v. Industra Products, Inc., 683 F. Supp.
1254, 1260 (N.D. Ind. 1988).”
[5]The local law
that applies to you prohibits you within 1 year following termination of service,
from acting as a compensated representative of another in dealing with the
entity in connection with any specific matter in which you participated
substantially as an official or employee. It is not for this Committee to opine
on the applicability of the foregoing to your situation, but we note that you
have told us that you will not be compensated, so it is unlikely that this
provision would affect you. The
Committee does not purport to determine if this is the only law applicable to
your situation as described in this opinion.
You must make that determination yourself.
REFERENCES:
Rules
1.9 and 1.11
Dockets
94-15, 2000-19
Spears v. Fourth Court of Appeals, 797
S.W. 2d 654, 657 (Tx. S.Ct. 1990).
Security General Life
Ins. Co. v. Superior Court In and For Yuma, 149
Ariz. 332,334 718 P.2d 985, 987Ariz.,1986.
PA
Eth. Op. 96-122, 1996 WL 935277 (Pa.Bar.Assn.Comm.Leg.Eth.Prof.Resp.)
AK
Eth. Op. 95-2, 1995 WL 928996 (Alaska Bar.Assn.Eth.Comm.)