Louison, Costello, Condon & Pfaff, LLP

This letter is in response to Complaint #[redacted] filed with the Revdex.com on 6/19/2015 by a customer. The customer alleges that Louison, Costello, Condon & Pfaff, LLP (LCCP) unjustifiable cited a conflict of interest without hearing their case. LCPP maintains that a conflict of interest is present...

between the customer and our clients and, thereby, LCCP is unable to represent the customer at this time. As per Rule 1.7(a) of the [redacted] Rules of Professional Conduct (“[redacted] R.Prof. C.”) an attorney is unable to represent a prospective client if that representation involves a concurrent conflict of interest that will be adverse to the attorney’s current client and if the new representation would limit the lawyer's abilities. Unless the current client is willing to give informed consent, per Rule 1.7(b) and Rule 1.9, then the attorney is not obligated to represent the new client. Rule 1.18 states that any information provided by a prospective client is confidential unless otherwise permitted under the Rules. As such, if a conflict of interest does exist between a current client and the prospective client, the attorney may be privy to materially adverse information regarding their current client and, due to the Rules, the attorney would not be able to disclose that information. Furthermore, the “highest duty and attorney owed a client is the duty to maintain confidentiality” and, unless informed consent is given, the attorney cannot breach that confidence. Commonwealth v [redacted]). Since our current clients have refused to grant informed consent on any matters, the source of the conflict between the customers and any of our clients is privileged. Additionally, in order to prevent a Rule 1.18 violation, LCCO would not like to limit our abilities for our current clients by learning confidential information from the customer. For the reasons stated herein, LCCP must maintain the confidence or our current clients and , thus, we are unable to represent the customer at this time.