2002

• Opinion No. 02-4
  Summary: The Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct would not govern the ability of a Massachusetts-licensed federal government lawyer to interview former employees of a corporation party in litigation pending before a federal agency in another jurisdiction.
• Opinion No. 02-3
  Summary: As a general rule, the anti-contact prohibition of Rule 4.2 does not apply to former employees of a corporation.
• Opinion No. 02-2
  Summary: Under Rule 1.7, a lawyer may not simultaneously represent two clients seeking to develop adjoining parcels of land when one client proposes to object to the other client's effort to obtain the necessary permit from the zoning board unless both clients give informed consent to the dual representation and the lawyer reasonably believes that dual representation will not adversely affect her relationship with either client. If each representation was permissible when undertaken and the objection by one client to the other's project was not reasonably foreseeable at that time, it may be permissible to drop one client and to continue to represent the other.
• Opinion No. 02-1
  Summary: When a lawyer is representing a husband and wife as co-executors of an estate in which they are beneficiaries of a substantial minority interest in a valuable piece of real estate, the lawyer may not undertake representation of the wife in a divorce proceeding against the husband unless he can meet the consent and objective test requirements of Rule 1.7(a). Whether he may represent the wife with the husband's consent depends upon the circumstances of the particular case. The lawyer may not solve the conflict problem by withdrawing from representation of the husband as co-executor.