Conflicts of Interest for Corporate Lawyers
Kevin LaCroix has a post here on his blog, The D & O Diary, that discusses the April 1, 2009 decision here in U.S. v. Nicholas, et al., from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, involving what the court found were conflicts of interest and breaches of a lawyer's duty of loyalty due to a firm's representation of Broadcom in a stock options investigation at the same time the firm was also representing the CFO in related litigation. An issue arose about information obtained from the CFO that was disclosed without the consent of the CFO, and whether or not proper "disclosures" were made to the CFO about the potential conflict created by the same firm representing the CFO and the corporation.
This is "must reading" for any lawyer or firm who represents a corporation and whose representation involves an investigation of corporate officers who may or may not think that they too are being represented by the same law firm.
