stating public perception of attorney loyalties are one consideration
How later courts described this case
- stating public perception of attorney loyalties are one consideration
- attorney-client relationship existed where plaintiff asked lawyer to perform some legal work and was billed for services
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
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(concurring). I agree with the careful reasoning and clearly correct result reached by the majority. I, however, would reach that result more directly and more easily. Notwithstanding the status of Model Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 1.9 (1983) common sense and sound ethical practice dictate that in these circumstances counsel for the husband *617 should have patterned his conduct along a similar line, and should have known enough not to have represented him. 1
In my view, it would not lie in the mouth of an attorney, an officer of the court, to plead that an action is proper simply because no canon or disciplinary rule explicitly proscribes it.
“Professional responsibility” is something that cannot merely be “taught” in law school and “tested” on a multiple-choice examination. It is an ethic that must be nurtured and cultivated by every attorney during the entire course of his or her professional life. We must stake out the moral high ground by demanding sound and ethical judgments from our brothers and sisters at the bar. Without implying that the primary motivating factor in the present case was such, I think it important to assert that avarice must not be allowed to consume our profession.
This case falls comfortably within the Supreme Judicial Court’s admonition, cited in the majority opinion: “[I]n cases of doubt, counsel must resolve all questions against the acceptance of employment whenever such acceptance may impinge upon the interests of his present and former clients” (emphasis supplied). Mailer v. Mailer, 390 Mass. 371, 375 (1983).