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I would caution against it because if shit hits the fan later down the road then ethics questions are going to come up. Maybe try doing a conflict of interest waiver in the retainer agreement or somehow memorializing that the company's Board recognizes the existence of your familial relationship and have waived it after conducting a thorough search of other firms and determined fiduciary and loyalty duties are not violated by selecting your firm?

Yes bringing in business is beneficial to your position at your firm. You should develop business if you can even more so if you intend to stay with the firm.

No, there are no ethical violations. People represent family members quite frequently. I would expect that you wouldn’t be staffed on the work, but I don’t know.

I would talk to a senior partner about it. Some firms have minimums where the work is too small for them to undertake. Not saying that is the case here.

On a personal note, I would want my spouses company to have the best lawyers. If your firm offers that, I would go for it.

Anonymous User wrote:I would caution against it because if shit hits the fan later down the road then ethics questions are going to come up. Maybe try doing a conflict of interest waiver in the retainer agreement or somehow memorializing that the company's Board recognizes the existence of your familial relationship and have waived it after conducting a thorough search of other firms and determined fiduciary and loyalty duties are not violated by selecting your firm?

Usually a board has the interested member leave the room and discusses and votes without them present. This is standard stuff.
I’m certain OPs firm has handled this before. OP should present it to them and see how they want to handle the matter.

Npret wrote:No, there are no ethical violations. People represent family members quite frequently. I would expect that you wouldn’t be staffed on the work, but I don’t know.

OP is not asking about representation of a family member; OP is asking about representation of a company of which a family member is an officer. That is an important distinction. I am not certain if it is inherently an ethical violation (have not considered the issue in depth), but it seems fraught with peril if the lawyer-spouse is personally involved in the representation as I don’t see how the spousal relationship would not interfere with the lawyer-spouse’s loyalty and independent professional judgment with respect to the corporate client of which the other spouse is an officer.

Npret wrote:Usually a board has the interested member leave the room and discusses and votes without them present. This is standard stuff.
I’m certain OPs firm has handled this before. OP should present it to them and see how they want to handle the matter.

The disinterested director approval issue seems more relevant to a fiduciary fury analysis re: the directors than to the legal ethics issue. I still think you have the same issues from a legal ethics perspective if the lawyer-spouse is involved in the representation.

If the lawyer-spouse is not involved in the representation (and especially where the lawyer-spouse is a junior associate and thus not particularly likely to cause the lawyers who are involved in the representation to be conflicted about the advice they give to the corporation), seems like it could probably be worked out.

I don't see how this is any different than picking a firm because GC's golfing buddy is at firm x. As long as there is full disclosure, should be fine.