Page 12 - November PPIAC Newsletter Published

GUEST POST

ARE YOU CONFLICTED?

by Sam Petitto

I work mostly for attorneys, whom I call my clients.
They call their clients defendants, plaintiffs, or respondents. While I have a
basic CRM system in place for customer relations management, I also have
a second and equally important list. It’s a list of people I began keeping
almost five years ago and it has saved me time, money, and reputation more
than once: a conflict list.

That list includes the names of the attorneys’ clients and every other citizen
involved in a case on which I work. It also includes their status as defendant,
codefendant, witness, plaintiff, respondent, relative, or target of surveillance.
As the list has grown and evolved, I’ve added case numbers, birthdays,
phone numbers, names of attorneys who represented the person, and case
outcomes.

In 2020, when an attorney wants to hire me, the first thing I ask is the names
of the defendant and codefendants in a criminal case, or the names of the
plaintiff and respondent in a civil case. It’s easy to search the list, which is
now a spreadsheet with almost 1,000 names.

Occasionally, I’m offered work helping represent someone who is a
codefendant in a case where I’m already assigned to work on behalf of
another codefendant. Those cases I simply decline. Simply checking docket
numbers doesn’t help, though, since each codefendant gets a unique case
number. 12 people arrested for distribution of meth means 12 unique case
numbers, and not always numbered consecutively. A list of names is crucial
for sorting it out quickly.

More often, I’ll check the name of a prospective defendant and find that
person is a past witness or victim in a previous case I worked. When that
happens, I let the attorney know and allow them to decide if there’s an
ethical conflict with me helping represent their defendant. Often, even if the
name is someone I’ve dealt with previously, I can still take the case as long
as the attorney deems there is no conflict.