Discipline Board Investigating Conflict Of Interest Issue

A Washington D.C. Appeals Court has recently held that an attorney disciplinary board needs to investigate whether there was a conflict of interest when two attorneys represented both a mother and a son in a conflict involving a trust.  The attorney disciplinary board will need to determine if the two attorneys had to have informed consent from both the mother and son.  This dispute centered around a trust created in 2002 by Genevieve Ackerman.  The son, Dr. Stephen Ackerman, hired two attorneys “John T. Szymkowicz and his son, John P. Szymkowicz, to challenge the trust.”  The attorneys ended up representing both the mother and son in the suit.  The court held that even though the interests of Dr. Ackerman and Ms. Ackerman might be aligned there was still a substantial risk of a divergence of interests.  The District of Colombia Court of Appeals decision can be read here. 

See Discipline Board Must Examine Whether Attorneys’ Representation of Both Mother and Son Was a Conflict, Elder Law Answers, September 24, 2015.