Report Your Own Malpractice?

From Practice Blawg:

Ethical Duty to Report Your Own Malpractice - A Proposed Opinion

The Minnesota Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board has proposed the adoption of  Opinion No. 21 [opens as PDF], which deals with a lawyer’s duty to report his or her own malpractice to the lawyer’s client. The proposed opinion states:

A lawyer who knows that the lawyer’s conduct could reasonably be expected to be the basis for a malpractice claim by a current client should consult with the client about the lawyer’s conduct and the potential claim. In consulting with the client, the lawyer should disclose any significant risk that continued representation of the client will be materially limited by the personal interest of the lawyer and should advise the client to seek independent legal advice about the potential claim and the lawyer’s continued representation. When there is a conflict of interest, the lawyer should obtain the client’s informed consent, confirmed in writing, regarding the lawyer’s continued representation, if the continued representation is not otherwise prohibited.

Comments to the proposed opinion are included in the proposed opinion. The LPRB is accepting public comment until August 31, with comments to be made in writing to:

Siama Y. Chaudhary
1500 Landmark Towers
345 St. Peter Street
St. Paul, MN 55102

There does not appear to be a way to e-mail or post comments, though we have added this as a topic for discussion on mypractice, the MSBA’s professional networking site.

(Mike Frisch)