Nuance or Necessity for Conflicts in Bankruptcy Cases?

Abstract

Our thinking about conflicts of interest, especially in large chapter 11 cases involving a battle of BigLaw firms, has gone all catawampus. We are now seeing court decisions on section 327(a) employment applications that, though they quite properly focus on disinterestedness and the disclosures of connections required by Bankruptcy Rule 2014, manage somehow to skip over the fact that, if we're talking about law firms seeking employment, the lawyers in those firms are bound by the ethics rules of the bars in which they hold membership. The law firms-and every lawyer in those firms-have to address the issues of conflicts with concurrent clients, former clients, or prospective clients. This paper discusses two cases involving concurrent conflicts of interest that came to completely different results.