COURSE DESCRIPTION
Navigate the complex ethical landscape surrounding lawyer mobility where professional opportunity meets client loyalty and professional responsibility obligations in an increasingly competitive legal marketplace. This essential program addresses the professional conduct rules that govern law firm transitions, client solicitation, and file transfer procedures. Master the ethical requirements that ensure compliant lateral moves while protecting client interests and professional standing.
- Understand client notification and consent requirements when lawyers change firm affiliation
- Navigate non-solicitation agreements and their enforceability against departing lawyers and law firms
- Address file transfer and client property obligations affecting law firm transition procedures
- Master conflict checking and ethical screening requirements when lawyers join new firms
Speaker:
Thomas E. Spahn is a partner in the McLean, Virginia office of McGuireWoods, LLP, where he has a substantial practice advising clients on properly creating and preserving the attorney-client privilege and work product protections. For more than 30 years he has lectured extensively on legal ethics and professionalism and has written “The Attorney-Client Privilege and the Work Product Doctrine: A Practitioner’s Guide,” a 750 page treatise published by the Virginia Law Foundation. Mr. Spahn has served as a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and as a member of the Virginia State Bar's Legal Ethics Committee.