Key Takeaways | Private Client Disputes | Trust and Estate Ethics: When Two (or More) Is a Crowd

Lawyers in estate, trust, probate, and guardianship practices often encounter multiple parties whose interests don’t always align. Nonetheless, those parties are frequently represented by a single counsel or firm.

During the first webinar in our Private Client Disputes Webinar Series, McDermott Partners David A. Baker and Margaret E. Sanne discussed the challenges of handling such situations, along with the applicable rules and strategies to minimize ethics-based controversies arising from these cases.

They explored six scenarios addressing a wide range of ethical dilemmas, including direct conflicts between jointly represented spouses, concurrent conflicts between family members, imputation of conflicts within a firm, family conflicts with an incapacitated member, lawyers as tiebreakers or mediators in family disputes, and compensated gestational surrogacy.

Top takeaways included:

1. Ethics Should Always Be Top of Mind. When representing family offices, private trust companies, and multigenerational families, every situation has the potential to escalate into an ethics-based controversy. A keen understanding of the duties of loyalty and confidentiality, along with state ethical rules, can significantly reduce this risk.
2. Engagement Letters and Waivers Help Clarify Client Relationships and Conflicts, but They Don’t Resolve All Ethical Issues. Engagement letters and waivers can go a long way in clarifying who your client is, what conflicts are waived, and what your duties are in situations as they arise. However, some situations may require engaging separate counsel, withdrawing from representing one party, or entirely terminating representation of a family.