(a) When lawyers are associated in a firm, none of them shall knowingly represent a client when any one of them practicing alone would be prohibited from doing so by RPC 1.7, RPC 1.8, RPC 1.9 or RPC 2.2.

(b) When a lawyer becomes associated with a firm, the firm may not knowingly represent a person in the same or a substantially related matter in which that lawyer, or a firm with which the lawyer was associated, had previously represented a client whose interests are materially adverse to that person and about whom the lawyer had acquired information protected by RPC 1.6 and RPC 1.9(a)(2)* that is material to the matter.

(c) When a lawyer has terminated an association with a firm, the firm is not prohibited from thereafter representing a person with interests materially adverse to those of a client represented by the formerly associated lawyer unless:

(1) the matter is the same or substantially related to that in which the formerly associated lawyer represented the client; and

(2) any lawyer remaining in the firm has information protected by RPC 1.6 and RPC 1.9(b) that is material to the matter.

(d) When lawyers terminate an association in a firm, none of them, nor any other lawyer with whom any of them subsequently becomes associated, shall knowingly represent a client when doing so involves a material risk of violating RPC 1.6 or RPC 1.9.

(e) A disqualification prescribed by this rule may be waived by the affected client under the conditions stated in RPC 1.7 except where prohibited by law or regulation, such as the prohibition against a public entity waiving an attorney conflict of interest.

Comment to RPC 1.10

The Court has adopted ABA Model Rule 1.10 with two revisions. One, it adopts also paragraph (b) of the Debevoise Committee's recommendation, that paragraph here becoming paragraph (d). Two, the Court adopts the Debevoise Committee's paragraph (c) (rather than the ABA's paragraph (d)), numbering that paragraph here as paragraph (e). Paragraph (e) permits an affected client to waive an imputed disqualification under the conditions stated in RPC 1.7 unless prohibited by law or, as added by the Court, by regulation. The Court in this paragraph has stressed that a public entity is prohibited from waiving an attorney conflict of interest.

Top  Return Table of Contents | Return to Main Table of Contents