The Loyalty of Lawyers: A Comment on 3464920 Canada Inc. v. Strother

Abstract

The Strother decision is of major interest for legal practitioners, since it clarifies the circumstances in which a law firm could be found to have acted adversely to the interests of an existing client. From an academic perspective, however, the decision signals an unsettling lack of consensus among the judges on fairly basic principles of fiduciary law. This article aims to clarify some of the incertitudes pertaining to the interplay between contractual obligations and fiduciary relationships and to the content of the lawyer's duty of loyalty.

Keywords: fiduciary relationship, fiduciary duties, duty of loyalty, lawyers