A lawyer who signed a pleading with a name of another law firm and explained in court that she drafted a Title VII complaint only as a favor to a lawyer in that firm, cannot say now that she did not represent the plaintiff, and it doesn’t matter what she says the Virginia State Bar Ethics Hotline told her, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at Alexandria says.
It was at the district court’s status conference that this lawyer explained to the curious judge that she had just signed this complaint “on behalf of” the other lawyer’s firm and that the VSB had advised her she was engaging in “limited representation.” This was wrong in several ways, the federal court explains. Not only does Virginia Rule of Professional Conduct 1.16 say that any lawyer who signs a pleading represents the person whose pleading it is, but Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 and the federal district court’s local civil rule 83.1 provide the same thing. The lawyer guarantees the content of the pleading and has an attorney-client relationship with the party, and can withdraw only with leave of court. The understanding or deal made with another lawyer does not change this. Further, neither the judge nor anyone else really knows exactly what the confidential hotline told her. Thus that can’t govern such cases. Hotline advice simply cannot relieve attorneys of their obligations of exercising their own judgment as to what is ethical and what is not. The second attorney at this status conference was in a similar position, saying that she also did not belong to that law firm and had been hired by the other lawyer to perform certain specific tasks. She too believed that she was not fully representing the plaintiff and could totally end her relationship simply by filing a “Notice of Withdrawal.” The third attorney, apparently belonging to the said law firm, explained that she could not do all the tasks in this case, and had to ask for their help, because she had been suspended from practicing before a division of this federal court. Thus she had delegated these tasks. The last attorney was substituted as counsel of record and the other two lawyers, who had admitted their errors, were not held in contempt under the pending Rule to Show Cause. 20 VLW 194 (EDVa. 5/12/05).