1997

• Opinion No. 97-7
  Summary: When a lawyer who had represented a client leaves a firm, the firm may represent an interest adverse to that client even if the matters are substantially related if no attorney remaining in the firm has confidential information that is material to the matter.
• Opinion No. 97-6
  Summary: A law firm may not donate court-awarded fees in matters that it handled pro bono to the non-profit organization that referred the cases to it when the organization is not a qualified legal assistance organization. This inquiry does not raise the issue in the context of a qualified legal assistance organization, and we therefore do not express a conclusion on that issue.
• Opinion No. 97-5
  Summary: A lawyer had represented a bank-lender in a real estate closing. The owners were financing the buyers and guaranteeing their loan from the bank. At the owners' request, the lawyer had also drawn the deed from the owners to the buyers and a note and second mortgage from the buyers to the owners. In those circumstances, the lawyer ought not represent the bank in its suit against the owners on their guarantee without the informed consent of the owners.
• Opinion No. 97-4
  Summary: A lawyer must refrain from sending business cards or using other means of soliciting professional employment for a fee from people he learns about in the newspaper or through other media when their circumstances are such that there is potential that the targets of the solicitation cannot exercise reasonable judgment in employing a lawyer.
• Opinion No. 97-3
  Summary:The inquiring lawyer, who had represented a husband and would later represent his estate, had participated with the wife's attorney in preparing her will, which granted a power of attorney to the husband. The inquiring lawyer had also previously represented the wife. When the wife died, the husband remarried and revised his will to exercise the power of attorney in favor of his second wife. The inquiring lawyer should not represent the husband's estate in a lawsuit brought by the children of his first marriage, who would have received the corpus had he not revised his will to exercise the power of appointment.
• Opinion No. 97-2
  Summary:A lawyer's proposal to offer legal services at reduced fees to employees of local businesses and to involve those businesses in soliciting their employees violates DR 2-103 (E)'s prohibition against a lawyer's paying someone to solicit professional employment.
  
  

  A participating lawyer's payment of a modest administrative fee to an insurance company which maintains a panel of participating lawyers to serve its insureds under a prepaid legal services plan does not violate DR 2-103 (E) when the insurance company meets the requirements of a "qualified legal assistance organization" under that Rule.

• Opinion No. 97-1
  Summary: An attorney representing herself in litigation may not communicate with the adverse party in the litigation when the attorney knows that the adverse party is represented by counsel in the litigation.