Atlantic City Appeals Roll On Without Conflict
According to the recently decided New Jersey Supreme Court case City of Atlantic City v. Trupos, __ N.J. __ (2010), matters are “substantially related” under RPC 1.9 for disqualification purposes if a lawyer received confidential information while representing a former client that can be used in subsequent adversarial representation, or facts relevant from the prior representation are relevant and material to future representations. Additionally, a party seeking a disqualification has the initial burden of production, and the burden then shifts to the attorneys to prove that the prior matter is not substantially related to the current matter.
In the Trupos matter, a law firm represented Atlantic City for several years before a mandated revaluation, and acted as a non-voting consultant to the revaluation company. The law firm concluded its representation of Atlantic City in March 2008, and then began representing taxpayers in appeals against Atlantic City in 2009. Atlantic City moved to bar the firm from representing taxpayers by arguing that the firm had a conflict of interest because the matters were substantively related to it former representation. The New Jersey Tax Court agreed, and concluded the disqualification was proper because the firm could use information learned during its representation against Atlantic City. The Appellate Division affirmed substantially for the reasons in the Tax Court’s opinion.
The Supreme Court found the facts of the case did not present a conflict fof interest or the law firm. The law firm’s clients were not part of any tax appeals conducted while the law firm represented Atlantic City in 2006-2007. Moreover, the law firm was not privy to any relevant information from its representation of Atlantic City that was material to the current appeals. Thus, the Supreme Court remanded the matter to the Tax Court for further proceedings consistent with the Court’s opinion.
A copy of the Supreme Court’s opinion can be found here .
The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Cory K. Kestner, Esq., of McKirdy & Riskin, PA, in the preparation of this article.
