Formal Opinion 109
(1962)
Acceptance of Employment by a Law Firm Which Previous Relations Would Prevent Any Partner from Accepting

You have asked the Committee for our opinion on the following:

"Lawyer A and Lawyer B form a partnership. Before this association, they represented adverse parties in divorce proceedings.

"(1) May the firm properly represent one of those parties in a subsequent modification proceeding?

"(2) Having represented, as individual practitioners, opposing parties in proceedings for modification of a divorce, upon formation of a firm, may the firm subsequently represent one of the parties in a second modification proceeding?"

In our opinion the answer to both of the questions is the same; the law firm cannot properly represent either party in the subsequent proceedings. The basis for this opinion is well set forth in Opinion 33 of the Committee on Professional Ethics and Grievances of the American Bar Association in the following language:

"Canon 6 provides that ‘The obligation to represent the client with undivided fidelity ... forbids the subsequent acceptance of retainers or employment from others in matters adversely affecting any interest f the client in respect to which confidence has been reposed.’

"A firm of which X was a member, having acted for A, in an action to procure relief on the ground of her imbecility, all the members of that firm and of every other firm of which any of them may become a member are prohibited by Canon 6 from subsequently accepting employment to maintain that she was not an imbecile at the time of the first suit, or to affect the decree obtained in the first suit adversely to the interest of their client therein. The relations of partners in a law firm are so close that the firm, and all the members thereof, are barred from accepting any employment that any one member of the firm is prohibited from taking."