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

3-6. Should Martyn & Fox represent a defendant on death row who brutally abused
and then stabbed two young girls? How should we respond if a court appoints us to
represent the defendant?
C. Actual and Implied Client-Lawyer Relationships Model Rules: Scope
[17]; 1.18(a) and Comments [1] & [2]; RLGL §§ 14, 15
The Law Governing Lawyers:
Actual and Accidental Clients
In Chapter 1, Professors Freedman and Smith discussed Wasserstrom’s assertion that
lawyers engage in role-differentiated behavior; that is, lawyers rightly favor the interests of
clients over the interests of others. Choosing to take on a client means taking on fiduciary
obligations to stay focused on the client’s best interests as those interests are refined in
discussions between client and lawyer and then determined by the client.
Actual Clients
In most situations, lawyers know who their clients are because they have expressly agreed to
represent them. No payment is necessary to establish a client-lawyer relationship so long as
both lawyer and client agree that the lawyer should provide legal services to that client. 1
Fiduciary duties automatically attach to each client-lawyer relationship once a lawyer agrees
to represent a client. 2
Accidental Clients
Increasingly, however, the law governing lawyers also has recognized what lawyers might
think of as “accidental” clients — those a lawyer did not expect or identify, but those
nonetheless recognized by law. This chapter and the remainder of this book illustrate a
myriad of situations where accidental clients may lurk.
1. Court Appointments Bothwell instructs that client-lawyer relationships can be created
involuntarily by court appointment. As an officer of the courts, lawyers have a duty to
accept court appointments unless that lawyer can convince the judge that it would violate
some other provision in the professional rules, such as competence, confidentiality, or
loyalty, or create an unreasonable financial hardship. 3
2. Implied Client-Lawyer Relationships The next case, Togstad, formed the basis for Section
14 of the Restatement. Court allow juries to find implied client-lawyer relationships when a
lawyer offers legal advice, or when a lawyer does not clearly decline a representation and a
nonlawyer reasonably relies on that lawyer to provide legal assistance. Lawyers may find
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