An all-too-common situation that confronts plaintiff’s attorneys is when corporate defense attorneys declare that they also represent employees who are fact witnesses to the subject matter of the lawsuit.
Effectively, this prevents the attorney from conducting potentially valuable informal interviews of the witnesses. And employees are often afraid to reject this “offer” from their employer and counsel.
A Brooklyn judge rejected an attempt by Morgan, Lewis & Bockius to represent four key witness employees in an employment discrimination action, finding that it improperly thwarted the informal discovery process, reports the New York Law Journal. The judge relied on a 1990 New York Court of Appeals decision holding, among other things, that a plaintiff’s attorney can interview corporate employees who are witnesses to an event.
The judge also found that the defense attorneys violated the Code of Professional Responsibility in soliciting the witnesses as clients.
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