#LegalDrama 😱 We just found out that both attorneys in our case have a conflict of interest! It turns out they were basically playing on the same team behind our backs 🤦♂️ How did we end up in this mess? We handed over evidence of violations in our community, but our attorney just swept it under the rug and made us look like the bad guys 😡 Now we’re left wondering, what legal terms apply to this shady behavior? Any suggestions on how to proceed? #LegalAdviceNeeded 🤔 Let’s navigate this legal maze together! Do you think we should get new attorneys? Vote now! 🗳️ #TimeForChange ⚖️
I’m not seeing a conflict of interest here unless you left something out.
Having worked together before doesn’t immediately create a conflict. It’s not like they’re in the same practice.
Also, demand letters don’t lay out legal strategy. They simply say you want a specific action stopped or started.
You’re not citing laws, or precedent. Demand letters don’t have power of law. They pretty much say you’re mad at someone and also now have counsel.
You also don’t typically want to start out combative. If you immediately go on the attack, then opposing counsel will immediately go on the defense, and counter. That means a higher chance of escalating to an actual court case, which means more billable hours you have to pay once that retainer runs out.
This isn’t a legal advice issue, this is sour grapes that you didn’t get every last thing you wanted. That’s not how the law works.
I can have current clients in common with my opposing. That’s not a conflict at all in YOUR case. If you don’t like it, that’s fine, but it’s not a conflict. If you don’t like your attorney’s style, by all means get a different one but that’s a choice, not because your lawyer has a conflict. “What can we do now?” – hire counsel of your choice and move on. There’s nothing “to do” with the information you have because it’s a complete nothing.
Attorneys do conflict checks before taking on a client or assuming representation. A conflict as a legal concept has a specific definition. What you are describing may feel strange to you but it is not a conflict as we understand it.
Also, you have to think of it like this: there are only so many lawyers in a given area practicing in their area of law. They know each other, maybe went to law school together, and have had many cases together. I’m a civil defense attorney and I spend more time interacting with local plaintiff’s counsel than I do with my own friends sometimes. We can go to court and fight, and then we have to get over it….because we have to keep working together. We had cases together before your case and we will have cases together for many years after. A friendly relationship between opposing counsel will only help everyone.
I have two cases right now with one attorney – in one case we are co-defendants and working together, on the other case we are on opposite sides.
If this makes you uncomfortable, you can look for an out of county attorney. But they won’t have the relationships with local counsel, and those relationships honestly help everyone.
It doesn’t seem like you know what conflict of interest means. Your lawyer may have been doing a bad job, or just had a strategy who knows. Just because you think the demand letter should have been written differently doesn’t mean you’re right and it definitely doesn’t mean there was a conflict of interest. As to now what you try to find another attorney.
Demand letters will set a date to respond/to pay to an allegation by, if they don’t then you will bring a complaint (lawsuit).
The complaint is where they state the laws broken/violations/breaches of contract. Insurance companies and big business have multiple current counsels retained as well as a ton of former. Being a former counsel is not a conflict of interest and it’s often a professional courtesy lawyers provide to each other of being civil. They HAVE to talk to each other to get matters settled.
Being a former counsel for an insurance company could be a pro for you as the attorney could know what the insurance company will fight (cost you money) and what they would settle on.
A demand letter isn’t for providing evidence but to start the ball rolling towards a suit.
Good luck.
Not putting all of your cards on the table in an initial correspondence/demand is very typical. If you hired an attorney that is astute in the area of law that your claim sits, he or she likely knows more than you. They probably had a strategy for managing your claim. You should have talked to your attorney about this before you fired them. Usually if a person has a revolving door of attorneys, I assume that their claim has no merit/value or the client is difficult. You may have difficulty getting another attorney to pick up this matter for you. There is no apparent conflict of interest here from the facts you provided.
I don’t see a conflict of interest here just because the attorneys represented the same company before. That happens all the time.
>This tactic helped the other party to deny some of violations and some violations were just ignored.
The defendant in a litigation is allowed to deny violations and ignore actions demanded in a letter regardless of whether you specifically list the law that’s being violated in the letter. They aren’t forced to do anything until a court orders them to do so.
Nothing you’ve described here sounds like it’s reached the level of some kind of ethical violation, just that you don’t agree with the strategy your attorney is taking when handling the case. The client gets to make the big decisions on the case, but they don’t get to dictate how the lawyer handles the overall day-to-day things with the strategy of the case. You’re free to find an attorney that matches your expectations of how you believe they should handle the case.
To be clear, it’s perfectly ok for attorneys who are on opposite sides of a dispute to also both represent a different common client. It’s also normal, and expected, for then to have cordial relationships with each other.
Unless there’s more you’re not saying, where’s the conflict of interest?
I’m not sure anything you mentioned is actionable, or that the conflict you mentioned is actually a conflict.