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Course Details

Course Information
  • smart_display Format

    Live Online with Live Q&A

  • signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level

    Intermediate

  • work Practice Area

    Ethics

Date & Time
  • event Date

    Tuesday, August 19, 2025

  • schedule Time

    1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT

  • timer Program Length

    90 minutes

Credit Information

  • This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.

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MSRP
$197.00
$147.00
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Discount expires 8/7/25

This course is $0 with these passes:

CLE
ALL

This CLE course will prepare law firms and practitioners for legal ethics issues that arise in attorney career transitions. The panel will discuss critical topics such as client communications, work-product disputes, partnership or employment agreements, managing conflicts, and other key issues.

Faculty

Jay R. McDaniel
Member
Weiner Law Group, LLP

Mr. McDaniel is an experienced business litigator and counselor who focuses his practice on business divorce, corporate governance and intellectual property disputes including copyright, trademark and trade secret litigation. He has represented publicly and privately held clients in a range of industries, from internet startups to established businesses in construction, entertainment, information technology, importation, distribution, banking and construction. Mr. McDaniel has focused on corporate governance disputes involving closely held corporations, often referred to as business divorce, since the mid-1990s. He has counseled businesses and their principal owners through complex business divorces in a broad range of industries and professions. These include both litigated and negotiated breakups of closely held corporations, limited liability companies and partnerships. Mr. McDaniel writes regularly on business divorce and is the editor and principal author of the Business Divorce Law Report.

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Description

An attorney transitioning from one firm to another or to private practice or in-house counsel is fraught with ethical pitfalls. Legal ethics rules present challenges regarding the attorney's and the firm's obligations to clients, including notice to clients and business solicitation.

Disputes often arise between a departing attorney and a firm over whether clients will stay with the firm or go with the departing attorney. Both parties may also have opposing claims on client contact information, document templates, and other non-client work product.

An attorney changing firms must communicate some client information to the new firm for conflict review. The ABA's Standing Committee on Ethics issued Formal Opinion 09-455 to guide the timing and scope of disclosures and how the new firm may use the information received.

Listen as our authoritative panel guides you through the myriad legal ethics issues presented when an attorney leaves one firm for another firm and offers approaches to avoid ethical pitfalls during the transition process.

Outline

I. Notice and communication

A. Notice by departing attorney to the firm

B. Notice by departing attorney to clients

C. Notice by the law firm to clients

D. Post-notice communications with clients

E. Attorney solicitation of clients

II. Property of firm vs. departing attorney

A. Client files

B. Attorney work-product

C. Client contact information

III. The obligation of departing attorney and new firm

A. Conflict-check obligation by the new firm

B. Disclosure of client information to a new firm

C. ABA Formal Opinion 09-455: Disclosure of Conflicts Information When Lawyers Move Between Firms

Benefits

The panel will review these and other critical issues:

  • What notice should a departing attorney and law firm provide clients--and how and when should this notice be given?
  • What actions should a law firm avoid after giving clients notice that an attorney is leaving the firm?
  • What rules govern a departing attorney's solicitation of clients from the former firm?
  • Is a departing attorney permitted to retain client contact information from a mobile device provided and paid for by the former firm?
  • What must an attorney disclose to the new firm about former clients--and how may the new firm use this information?