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<b>Counsel Concerns</b>Music Publisher's Defense Counsel To Stay in Case
Rule 3-310(E) of California Rules of Professional Conduct states that a lawyer “shall not, without the informed written consent of the client or former client, accept employment adverse to the client, or former client where, by reason of the representation of the client or former client, the member has obtained confidential information material to the employment.” Rule 1.10(b) of the American Bar Association (ABA) Model Rules of Professional Conduct states: “When a lawyer has terminated an association with a firm, the firm is not prohibited from thereafter representing a person with interests materially adverse to those of a client represented by the formerly associated lawyer and not currently represented by the firm, unless 1) the matter is the same or substantially related to that in which the formerly associated lawyer represented the client; and 2) any lawyer remaining in the firm has [protected] information … material to the matter.”
Both rules were cited by the California Court of Appeal in a recent ruling involving entertainment industry litigation. After losing her job, Ilene Goldberg, an in-house attorney for Warner/Chappell Music from 1993 to 2002, filed suit against the music publisher. The suit alleged, among other things, gender discrimination and wrongful termination. Shortly after filing the complaint, Goldberg moved to disqualify Warner-Chappell defense counsel Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp (MS&K). Goldberg claimed that she had revealed confidential information to former MS&K partner J. Eugene Salomon when she consulted him in 1997 about her employment with Warner-Chappell. This was just after MS&K began doing legal work for Warner-Chappell. Goldberg said she also had personal and professional relationships with other MS&K lawyers.
Goldberg purportedly “disclosed confidential information to [Salomon] including the nature and term of [her] employment agreement, [her] compensation and benefits, disability, termination by [Warner], [her] ability to retain, disclose, and use confidential/privileged information concerning [her] employment relationship with [Warner], scripts and other literary works created by [her], the effect of a change in control of [Warner], expiration of the employment agreement, and [Warner's] obligations under state and federal law.”
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