Law - What is this "list" I keep hearing about?

United States

I have come across this a few times in my career working in corporate offices for the past 20 years or so. In one office I worked, one employee was punched in the back by a supervisor and a huge bruise was left. This was also caught on security camera, yet the employee could not find a lawyer to sue the employer for doing nothing about it, as the employee kept getting the response “we can’t sue that company because they are on the list”.

This also happened to another employee who got fired for having a stroke on the job, which is against federal law. She even went to other states for legal help and was told the same thing, “we won’t sue that company because they are on the list”.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of law offices stating this to an employee who was abused and tormented by another employee or manager while on the job.

So, what LIST is this? What protection racket are these corrupt companies a part of that protects them from being sued by employees they have illegally and maliciously assaulted and/or fired breaking many federal laws?? And what corrupt organization are these lawyers a part of, where they won’t protect people from violent, corrupt companies?

So exactly what ***LIST ***is this?
How do these companies get on it?
Who or what company manages this LIST???

I would hazard a guess that no such list exists anywhere.

I’ve never even heard rumors of such a list in existence anywhere.

That can mean only one of two things.

  1. No such list exists.

  2. *They *take steps to keep the list quiet.

I think the answer is 1) if it’s 2) I’d head for the deepest woods and learn to live off the land.

My guess is that they’re referring to the client list, that is the list of corporations and individuals that are already clients of that law firm. I don’t think law firms will pursue a case against someone who already has them on retainer, or which they represent.

It’s really hard to imagine a potential plaintiff not asking, “What list?” after hearing that excuse a couple of times. It’s also hard to imagine every law firm in a state and the next state is on retainer. Yes I realize they may not have tried every law firm, but how many law firms does a company keep on retainer?

Steve Guttenberg.

Question for lawyers practicing in the USA:

Wilma calls you asking you to represent her in a divorce from Fred. You ask her a few questions to determine what the matter involves to help you decide if you should represent her. After hearing her out, including hearing some relevant financial and sensitive personal details, you tell her that you will not represent her.

A few days later, Fred calls up looking for a lawyer to represent him in the divorce from Wilma.

Are you conflicted out from representing Fred because of the conversation you had with Wilma, i.e. do you owe a duty of confidentiality to Wilma despite her not having been your client?

(Up here in Ontario, Canada, usually a lawyer owes a duty of confidentiality to anyone with whom they have a conversation invoking a lawyer’s professional knowledge in the seeking advice or assistance on a matter, despite not necessarily having been formally retained or having received payment. Is it like that in USA jurisdictions, or do you have a bright line test that you use, e.g. written retainer agreement or invoice or payment?

Where I practice, this broad confidentiality issue means that for the most part a call with a potential client is usually enough to preclude me from later taking on the other party as a client. I support this requirement, and it works nicely in large urban centres, but the flip side of the coin is that it makes it very difficult for people who reside in smaller communities to get representation, particularly if their community is a fair hike from the nearest urban centre large enough to have lawyers.)

The bible-printin’ guy? I can see how the whole printing press would help him manage that list. . . :wink: :stuck_out_tongue:

The Stonecutters manage the list, Steve is just the current copy editor.

That is the only thing that is reasonable outside of tin foil hat conspiracy theories. Though I still don’t see it as being “on a list”, but rather, a conflict of interest.

When I went out to get myself a lawyer, before they could represent me, they had to consider who my likely legal opponents were, and whether or not they had represented them. That took about 15 minutes or less, and they came back happy to represent.

Not many - but I suspect that these people are not calling solo practitioners or small partnerships, either. If there are only three “law firms” big enough to be worthy of being called a “firm” in the area, it is entirely possible that a company has used all three at one time or another.

But a corporation can’t put every law firm in the country on retainer.

I met a woman a couple of years ago who had gotten into a very nasty divorce and she put the top nine law firms in her city on retainer so her husband couldn’t use them in the divorce case.

Of course a corporation can’t put every law firm in the country on retainer. (Although a large company with operations all over the place probably does do business with many law firms.) I don’t think anyone is saying that all the law firms turned down the case. We’re only hearing a third- or fourth-hand retelling of the story so the details may be muddled.

Yes. I would be ethically precluded from representing Fred.

Thanks.

I come across something like that a few times a year.

Sometimes a spouse will consult with many family lawyers so as to conflict them out from representing the other spouse.

Sometimes a spouse will be such an awful person that they will consult with many family lawyers (which conflicts them all out) before finding one who will take them on as a client.

Either way, it leads to one of the parties either unrepresented or having to find a lawyer from out of town, which can get very expensive.

Also true for Expert Witnesses. Never read the case notes until you are contracted.

I know a woman who had a difficult time finding a local lawyer to represent her when she divorced her husband, a local lawyer.

I’ve seen that used once or twice on TV (Sopranos may have done it). A divorce is impending, one spouse, usually the one that’s trying to protect their money, will have a consultation with every divorce lawyer in town. The idea being that the other spouse has a very difficult time trying to find someone to represent them.

My wife used to be an attorney and I seem to recall her talking about something called a Chinese wall. As I understood it, the idea was that a firm could represent parties with potential conflicts of interest as long as the attorneys involved did not exchange any information. Not both sides in the same case, obviously, but if say A was suing B and the firm was representing A, they could also represent B in some completely unrelated case as long as the attorneys did not exchange any information. This doesn’t work for individual attorneys of course, but a large firm should be able to do it.