다수당사자소송에서 변호사의 이익충돌회피의무

The attorney-at law is obligated to act in the best interests of each client and to avoid conflicts of interests. Conflicts of interests can arise between attorney-at law and current clients, between two or more current clients. Under Article 31 of the Attorney-At-Law Act, no attorney-at-law shall provide his/her services with respect to a case that falls under any of a case brought by the opposing party, for which the attorney-at-law has been consulted by the other party of the case and which the attorney-at-law has already accepted. Under Article 22 of the Code of Ethics of Attorneys at Law, a attorney-at-law shall not represent a client if the representation involves a concurrent conflict of interest in the same case. And in a particular case, an attorney may represents his/her clients if the clients involved in a case presenting a conflict of interest have expressly agreed to be represented by the attorney-at law. Then the representation does not involve the assertion of a claim by one client against another client represented by the lawyer in the multiparty litigation. But these rules are insufficient to avoid conflicts of interests arising from the multiparty litigation. We need to refer to other rules to improve these rules. Under ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 1.7, if the risk of conflicts of interests is serious, the attorney-at law must refrain from acting. Under SRA Code of Conduct Chapter 3, where there is a client conflict and the clients have a substantially common interest in relation to a matter or a particular aspect of it, attorney-at law only act if he/she has explained the relevant issues and risks to the clients and all the clients have given informed consent in writing to he/she acting. And where there is a client conflict, attorney-at law only act if he/she has explained the relevant issues and risks to the clients and he/she has a reasonable belief that they understand those issues and risks.