Conflicts of Interest · 12-18% of the exam

Night-before checklist

Chapter 10 · 8 items

• Rule 1.8 is a catalog of specific prohibitions — identify which sub-rule governs the fact pattern before applying its conditions.

• All four DRAW conditions for 1.8(a) must be met; three require something in writing, and a signed deal-term contract isn't the same as the client's informed consent to the lawyer's role.

• Financial assistance under 1.8(e), three tiers: outcome-contingent advance (any client); outright payment (indigent client); modest basic-living gifts (pro bono indigent client, direct or through a nonprofit, public-interest or law-school program) — no promising, assuring or implying availability, no reimbursement from the client, a relative of the client or anyone affiliated with the client, no advertising.

• Literary rights under 1.8(d) are barred prior to the conclusion of representation of a client — the trigger is the end of the lawyer's representation, not the end of the matter.

• Third-party compensation under 1.8(f) has three conditions: the client's informed consent (no writing required), no interference with the lawyer's independence of professional judgment or the client-lawyer relationship, and information protected as required by Rule 1.6.

• Aggregate settlement under 1.8(g) requires each client's informed consent in a writing signed by the client, plus disclosure of the existence and nature of all claims or pleas involved and each person's participation.

• The 1.8(j) sexual-relations bar is personal to the involved lawyer and is not imputed under Rule 1.8(k); a coexisting Rule 1.7(a)(2) personal-interest conflict is still tested under Rule 1.10(a)(1).

• The reverse: Rule 1.8(k) applies paragraphs (a)–(i) to every lawyer in the firm, so a lawyer who never touched the matter is still bound by (for example) Rule 1.8(a) as to another lawyer's client.

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