ETH 1210
Ethics Opinions 1210
New York Ethics Opinion
December 3, 2020
Topic:
Conflicts of interest; definition of law firm; public
defender; part-time justice
Digest:
A county attorney’s office represents and advises the
county public defender’s office on grant funding and
other financial and administrative matters. However, the
county attorney’s office has no access to information
concerning the public defender’s clients, the two
offices do not share common office space or file systems, and
the lawyers in the county attorney’s office do not
supervise or control the legal services provided by the
public defender’s office. Although the county
attorney’s office and the public defender’s
office are not, on these facts, considered a single law firm,
an attorney in the public defender’s office may
nonetheless have a personal conflict of interest in
representing clients in criminal cases before a part-time
town justice who is also a fulltime assistant county
attorney. The conflict may arise if lawyers in the county
public defender’s office have an institutional
incentive to curry favor with the part-time justice.
Rules:
10(h), 17(a)(2), 17(b), 110(a) & (d), 8.4(f)
FACTS
1. The
inquirer is an attorney in a county public defender’s
office. The public defender’s office is represented and
advised by the county attorney’s office, which
represents and advises all county departments, principally
with respect to administrative and financial matters such as
office leases and applications for grants to fund the public
defender’s office. The county attorney’s office
is not involved in the handling of individual public defender
cases, does not share office space with the public
defender’s office, and does not have access to public
defender case files or its case management system.
2. A
full-time assistant county attorney was recently elected to
serve as a part-time town justice but will continue to serve
as an assistant county attorney As a part-time town justice,
the full-time assistant county attorney will preside over
criminal cases in which assistant public defenders can be
expected to appear.
QUESTION
3. Is
an attorney in the public defender’s office ethically
permitted to represent clients in front of a town justice who
also works as an assistant county attorney in the county
attorney’s office— an office that represents and
advises the public defender principally on financial and
administrative matters?
OPINION
4.
Three potential conflicts of interest are presented by this
inquiry. First, are the county attorney’s office and
the public defender’s office considered to be a single
“law firm” for...
