[textbook]Traversing the Ethical Minefield Problems, Law, and Professional Responsibility by Susan R. Martyn (z-lib.org)(1) (1)

Problems
7-6. May Martyn tell the other side that our client “won’t possibly pay more than
$500,000” when she has recommended that our client settle the case quickly for far more
than that or face far more extensive liability? How about if Martyn tells the other side that
she “isn’t authorized to settle for more than $500,000,” when she has settlement authority
of $5,000,000?
7-7. Fox, representing seller, and based on seller’s information, told buyer’s lawyer that
the property is zoned commercial. Just before closing, Fox learns that the property is zoned
residential. Client insists no disclosure be made, asserting, “It’ll kill the deal.” Now what?
Lawrence J. Fox
Legal Tender: A Lawyer’s Guide to Handling Professional Dilemmas
157-166 (ABA 1995)
The Opinion Letter
Forty years ago they were in the third grade at Highlands School. George was the new kid
on the block, Lonnie the veteran from kindergarten. They met in the playground before
school, quickly learned they both loved baseball (even the hapless Philadelphia A’s), and
soon found themselves as rival pick-up team captains. How many times they had used that
elaborate ritual of alternately grabbing the baseball bat to determine who would choose
first.
George’s family’s move to the suburbs five years later did not separate the boys for long,
as Lonnie’s folks followed them to Claymont one year later. There they found themselves
teammates on the Claymont High School baseball team (Class B Delaware High School
champions in 1959), sharing both the visits to colleges and the springtime anxiety as they
awaited the results of the torturous college admissions process. When both lads were
accepted at Syracuse, the fact that Lonnie had also been admitted to his original first
choice, Trinity College, was quickly ignored as the friends deliciously contemplated
spending four more years together — two hundred miles from home. Visions of
intercollegiate athletics, fraternity memberships, new friendships, and football weekends
soon became reality; Lonnie and George thrived despite the harsh winters of upstate New
York.
College was a total success, launching the new graduates into their first period of
separation in nearly ten years; George went off to Villanova Law School and Lonnie to the
business school at Northwestern. They had often discussed their differing interests into the
night over coffee and even, it had to be admitted, over more than a few Genesee beers,
jokingly suggesting that Lonnie might some day become George’s biggest client. But this
was no more than a joke designed to ease the pain of their going down different paths since,
at the time, George envisioned himself as Assistant District Attorney in New Castle
County, prosecuting the clients of Perry Mason.
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