The court reasoned that “ere the law otherwise, the costs involved in retaining local counsel would increase substantially…Out-of-state litigants would be forced to pay a local lawyer to review lead counsel’s work” which would result in “skyrocketing costs of litigation”.Īpart from these public policy considerations of the cost of litigation, there were some mitigating facts that no doubt influenced the court’s decision to let local counsel off the hook.

The appeals court held that local counsel did not have a duty to monitor lead counsel’s handling of the requests for admissions. Remarkably, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order granting Abdo & Abdo summary judgment despite that firm’s failure to consult with the client about the limited scope of its representation as local counsel. Thereafter, Macawber sued both its New York law firm and Minnesota local counsel for legal malpractice. Subsequently, the district court deemed the requests for admissions admitted and granted partial summary judgment in favor of plaintiff. Thereafter, the plaintiff served Macawber with a set of 130 requests for admissions, which New York counsel inexplicably ignored and failed to timely respond to. Robson & Miller retained the law firm of Abdo & Abdo to serve as local counsel. Macawber retained Robson & Miller, a New York law firm, to defend the suit. In the underlying case, Macawber, a seller of industrial equipment, was sued in a commercial dispute in federal district court in Minnesota. What is probably every local counsel’s nightmare became reality In Macawber Engineering, Inc. However, an attorney cannot contractually limit her liability nor contract away her ethical duties. According to the NYCBA opinion, a limited scope representation may effectively reduce the potential professional liability of local counsel by limiting expectations concerning the task to be undertaken. A client can give an “informed consent” to limiting the scope of local counsel’s representation, but even with a written “informed consent”, a lawyer serving as local counsel may not be completely out of the woods. Nonetheless, according to New York City Bar Association (“NYCBA”) Formal Opinion 2015-4, local counsel will remain bound by the court rules and potentially subject to sanctions if she signs her name to a frivolous complaint or a pleading containing counts not supported by the facts alleged in the complaint. The litigation guidelines may further provide that the client will not pay for local counsel’s time reviewing such pleadings and court papers. There are times, however, when out-of-state counsel’s directions to local counsel may place local counsel at risk of violating the court rules or ethical standards.įor example, out-of-state counsel’s litigation guidelines may provide that local counsel is not required to review pleadings and court papers prepared by out-of-state counsel, but to which local counsel is asked to sign her name. In most circumstances, local counsel has no difficulty navigating among these various interests. Are there instances, however, when doing too little is not doing enough? Local counsel’s duties and responsibilities are governed by (1) first and foremost, referring out-of-state counsel’s requirements (2) local counsel’s obligation to the court and (3) the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Are there potential pitfalls in accepting a role as a “mailbox”, or a local counsel whose role is to merely facilitate an out-of-state lawyer’s working on a pro hac vice basis in your jurisdiction? Upon being retained, most lawyers asked to serve as local counsel will advise national counsel that they will do as much or as little as national counsel requires.

Pro hac vice nj