95-2.

• Case Date: January 13, 1995
• Court: Alaska

Alaska Ethics Opinion 1995. 95-2. Ethics Opinion No. 95-2 Government Employee Entering the Private Practice of Law with a Firm Handling Litigation Against the Attorney's Former Agency.The Ethics Committee has been asked whether Rule 1.11 (a) (endnote 1) Alaska Rules of Professional Conduct, prohibits a lawyer from representing a private client in a matter in which the lawyer had previously participated personally and substantially as a government officer or employee, but not in the capacity of a lawyer. We have also been asked under what circumstances would work done by a government employee's subordinates be attributable to the government employee for purposes of disqualification under Rule 1.11(a). We conclude that ARPC 1.11(a) does not prohibit a lawyer who participated personally and substantially as a government officer or employee in making policy or in drafting or implementing regulations from representing a private client in connection with issues related to that policy or those regulations. However, ARPC 1.11(a) does prohibit a lawyer from representing a private client in connection with a discrete transaction or set of transactions between identifiable parties in which the lawyer participated personally and substantially as a public officer or employee, regardless of whether the lawyer's previous public duties were those of a government lawyer or those of a government official who did not have the duties of a lawyer. We further conclude that work done by the lawyer's government employee subordinates does not disqualify the lawyer from representing a private client unless the lawyer participated personally and substantially in the matter in question while in public service. 1. Disqualification Due to the Lawyer's Government Work. Alaska Bar Association Ethics Opinion 83-4 concluded that DR 9-101(B), Alaska Code of Professional Responsibility, (endnote 2) prohibited a lawyer from representing a private client in connection with a matter in which the lawyer participated personally and substantially as a public officer or employee, regardless of whether the lawyer had participated in the matter as a lawyer or merely as a non-legal government official or employee. In Ethics Opinion 83-4, the lawyer, although working for the government in a non-legal position, had direct supervisory responsibility over lawyers defending...