Handling Friend and Family Requests for Legal Advice: Guidance for New Attorneys
Complying With the Model Rules and Avoiding the Unauthorized Practice of Law
Recording of a 60-minute CLE video webinar with Q&A
This CLE webinar will guide new lawyers through the risks that arise and the strategies to use when a family member or friend asks for legal advice. The panel will address how to handle such requests and connect the family member or friend with the resources they need.
Outline
- Introduction
- Potential risks of giving informal legal advice to friends and family
- Inadvertent formation of attorney-client relationship
- Bad advice, partial advice, and educated guesses
- Model Rule 1.1 of ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct: competence
- Conflicts and disqualification
- Confidentiality issues
- Model Rule 1.6: keeping clients' confidences
- Model Rule 1.18: keeping prospective clients' confidences
- Unauthorized practice of law
- Model Rule 5.5: unauthorized practice of law in a jurisdiction where the lawyer is not licensed
- Malpractice
- How to steer clear of the risks--and how to respond to requests for advice
Benefits
The panel will review these and other important issues:
- What are the key risks and ethical concerns that arise when friends and family request legal advice?
- What rules of professional conduct apply to informal requests for legal advice?
- How can lawyers minimize risks to themselves, their firms, and their friends and family when approached for legal advice?
- How should lawyers respond when friends or family ask for legal advice?
Faculty
David M. Majchrzak
Managing Shareholder, Deputy General Counsel
Klinedinst
Mr. Majchrzak is a seasoned ethicist, civil litigator, and certified specialist by the State Bar of California in... | Read More
Mr. Majchrzak is a seasoned ethicist, civil litigator, and certified specialist by the State Bar of California in legal malpractice law, is listed in Best Lawyers in America and Super Lawyers, and is rated AV®-Preeminent™ by Martindale-Hubbell. He is Managing Shareholder of the firm’s Arizona office, and serves as Deputy General Counsel. Mr. Majchrzak also chairs the firm’s writing committee and attorney training college. He represents clients in matters involving attorney and law firm risk management, discipline defense, and legal malpractice claims. Mr. Majchrzak devotes a substantial portion of his career to counseling his clients on how to achieve their professional goals in an ethical way. For lawyers and firms with or without general counsel, he helps navigate the often complex ethical waters of the legal profession. Mr. Majchrzak performs law office risk management assessments, trains law firm staff in ethics requirements, and advises on a variety of topics. These include conflicts of interest, fees and billing requirements and dispute handling, trust account procedures, internal and departing lawyer compensation, law firm advertising and online marketing efforts, engagement and common interest agreements, non-engagement and disengagement protocols, attorney-client privilege/confidentiality analyses and protection, subpoena response, multi-jurisdictional practice, lawyer mobility, and ancillary business ventures. Mr. Majchrzak is active and widely visible within the legal ethics community. He served as the co-chair of California Lawyers Association’s first Ethics Committee and as a member of the organization’s Future of the Profession Task Force; and he co-chaired 2022’s annual meeting. He currently serves as the secretary of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers, the chair of the ABA working group on Model Rule 5.5, a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Professionalism, a member of the editorial board of the ABA/Bloomberg Law Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Conduct, a liaison to the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, and a member of the ABA National Conference on Professional Responsibility Planning Committee. Mr. Majchrzak also served as a three-year member of the State Bar of California’s Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct, and chair of its outreach committee; and is a past chair of the San Diego County Bar Association’s Legal Ethics Committee. In 2015, Mr. Majchrzak revived the then-abandoned Ethics Quarterly, and has continued as one of its two editors. He has also taught professional responsibility as an adjunct law school professor.
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Reid P. Potter
Counsel
Klinedinst
Mr. Potter works with lawyers and law firms in all aspects of legal ethics law and risk management. He has over a... | Read More
Mr. Potter works with lawyers and law firms in all aspects of legal ethics law and risk management. He has over a decade of experience in compliance and legal roles, having served previously as Intake Bar Counsel at the State Bar of Arizona. Before joining the State Bar of Arizona, Mr. Potter had served as Chief Compliance Office and General Counsel at EZ-Messenger, a legal support services provider with locations in 15 states. He led the quality and compliance team, oversaw compliance and security programs, and negotiated contracts and service agreements.
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