Legal Definitions - conflict out

To conflict out means to disqualify a legal professional, such as a lawyer or a judge, from participating in a particular case or matter because their personal interests, or their duties to another client, create a conflict of interest. This disqualification ensures fairness, impartiality, and the protection of confidential information.

Here are some examples:

• Imagine a prominent law firm that regularly represents a large real estate developer. If a community group approaches that same law firm seeking to challenge one of the developer's new construction projects, the firm would be conflicted out from representing the community group. This is because the firm's existing duty of loyalty to the developer would directly clash with its potential duty to the community group, making it impossible to represent both fairly.

  This illustrates "conflicting out" because the law firm cannot take on a new client whose interests are directly adverse to an existing client, as it would compromise their professional obligations to one or both parties.

• Consider a judge who is assigned to preside over a lawsuit involving a major airline. If that judge's spouse works as a senior executive for that specific airline, the judge would likely need to conflict out of the case. Even if the judge believes they can be impartial, the close personal connection creates an appearance of bias that could undermine public confidence in the judicial process.

  Here, the judge is "conflicted out" due to a personal relationship that could create an actual or perceived conflict of interest, ensuring the integrity and impartiality of the court.

• Suppose a lawyer previously represented a startup company in negotiating a complex licensing agreement. Several years later, a larger corporation involved in a dispute with that same startup asks the lawyer to represent them in litigation related to that very agreement. The lawyer would be conflicted out because they possess confidential information from their prior representation of the startup that could be used against their former client, violating their ethical duty of confidentiality.

  This example shows "conflicting out" due to a lawyer's prior representation, where the duty to protect a former client's confidential information prevents them from representing a new client whose interests are adverse in a related matter.