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1. Dual representation of husband and wife can be
a dangerous malpractice trap.
2. Requests for joint representation in family
law matters are very rare.
3. Unbundling and discrete task representation
are different types of legal services related to family law only.
4. Lana Lawyer wants to provide limited services
in immigration law. One
type of limited service she could offer is legal assistance with
completing documents and forms to be filed with the INS.
5. California professional standards prohibit
lawyers from providing limited legal services to clients.
6. Husband and wife request that Lawyer assist
them in preparing a jointly filed marital settlement agreement. May
Lawyer accept the engagement if he obtains their written consent after
appropriate written disclosure of any potential conflicts?
7. The lawyer acting as an intermediary is
expressly permitted by the California Rules of Professional Conduct.
8. One of the roles of an intermediary is to seek
to establish or adjust a relationship between clients on an amicable
and mutually advantageous basis.
9. A lawyer is not permitted to act as a
scrivener because of the conflicts of interest in representing two
parties.
10. In the past, when illiteracy rates were
higher, lawyers frequently provided scrivener services without
performing legal services.
11. A non-lawyer is not permitted to assist
consumers in filling out legal forms because such conduct constitutes
the unauthorized practice of law.
12. California law defines precisely what a
lawyer scrivener is.
13. A marital settlement agreement, entered into
without fraud, duress, undue influence or other inequity, which was
prepared by a lawyer scrivener who obtained the informed written
consent of his clients to the representation, will not be held
unenforceable.
14. The preparation of documentation for the sale
and transfer of real property between seller and buyer will be subject
to future cancellation of deed where the documentation was prepared by
a lawyer scrivener after buyer and seller had agreed on essential
terms.
15. Lawyer was retained to act as a scrivener to
document the agreement by two parties to enter into a California
limited partnership to purchase real estate. Lawyer may represent the
partnership or may represent the interests of the two limited parties
jointly.
16. There is no difference between a lawyer
scrivener and a lawyer who engages in joint representation of multiple
parties.
17. Both joint representation and the lawyer
scrivener role involve the representation of multiple parties for a
common purpose and the provision of legal services to effectuate the
parties' common purpose or objective.
18. A lawyer scrivener should neither negotiate
nor facilitate agreement between the parties nor give legal advice
about the pros and cons of the deal points or the agreement to the
clients.
19. Lawyer agreed to serve as a scrivener and
draft a marital settlement agreement for Husband and Wife, after they
agreed upon the terms. Upon reading the terms, attorney believes
reasonably that the terms are grossly unfair to wife.
Lawyer may not then decline to act as a scrivener.
20. Lawyer agreed to act as a scrivener, after
obtaining Husband's and Wife's informed written consent, to put
their agreement into appropriate legal form of a marital settlement
agreement. After Husband received the draft agreement, he telephoned
Lawyer and requested that Lawyer advise him about how the agreement
affected him personally. Lawyer, appropriately, refused to talk with
him. |
