During the time a lawyer is actively practicing, their filing cabinet can gather all manner of sensitive and important documents over the years and may hold anything from business records to unfiled wills or deeds to records of litigation. Who do they belong to and what happens to them?
If an attorney sells their practice (or their interest in a
firm) there are rules to follow how the transfer happens. Among these are: A timely
notice to clients telling them of the right to obtain their files, hire a new
attorney, or staying with the attorney who is purchasing the practice.
Not all practices are so neatly closed or transferred;
sometimes an attorney dies unexpectedly or abandons their practice for some
reason. Their clients interest still deserves to be protected, so what happens
in those cases? When the lawyer was a member of a firm the situation is fairly easy.
Ex. with the client’s written consent the
firm can continue the representation, or they can find a new attorney[1].
For a solo practitioner it could be a little more difficult.
The Chief Judge of the local circuit court can be asked to appoint a Receiver
to handle the winding down of the office, including disposing of the files,
while protecting the interests of the clients. One reading of the rules is that
the Attorney Grievance Administrator has to make that request[2].
The Receiver, however, can be any individual and in as a very last resort the
office of the Administrator can act as the Receiver.
For inactive files it is one of those processes that sound
very simple: Examine the files, determine which documents have “independent
legal significance,” return them to the clients. This is where interesting and
unexpected things can pop up in the files. In future installments I’m going to
share with you (as it is possible) some of the things found during the
examination of files in my short internship experience.
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