united-states employment professional-ethics
How do rules of conduct apply when acting in a pro hac vice role in another state?
<p>A lawyer's client sent me a mild threat via text message. I have contacted the attorney on 4 separate occasions requesting an explanation/response from the attorney. They have not responded. Are there any ethics rules regarding this lawyer's conduct and failure to respond? Thx.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Are there any ethics rules regarding this lawyer's conduct and failure to respond?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Yes. </p>

<p>A lawyer admitted <em>pro hac vice</em> will typically be obligated to follow the Rules of Professional Conduct for both the jurisdiction in which he is barred and in the jurisdiction in which he had been admitted <em>pro hac vice</em>.</p>

<p>Both Texas and Florida have substantially adopted the ABA's Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which require a lawyer to act diligently and promptly on his client's behalf. This requires an attorney to act on his client's behalf in a reasonably timely way, which the attorney in your hypothetical sounds like he is not be doing.</p>

<p>By failing to respond to correspondence from an opposing party, an attorney can weaken his client's position or even affirmatively subject his client to new obligations. I'm not sure exactly what kind of correspondence you're imagining, but any attorney worth his salt could come up with plenty of ways that failing to communicate with an adverse party could harm the client: subjecting him to new contract obligations under UCC 2-207, allowing a settlement offer to lapse, pissing off the opposing party enough to move ahead with a lawsuit, or pissing off the judge who eventually handles the case, who will be none too happy to see that one side was being intransigent.</p>

<p>If such a failure to communicate diligently and promptly was not reasonable, the lawyer could be subject to discipline.</p>

<p>Practically speaking, though, none of this is likely very relevant for your purposes. My understanding is that unless you're the client, most states wouldn't even permit you to file any kind of complaint against the attorney based on this type of conduct. The ABA rules do impose obligations on attorneys with respect to their dealings with third parties -- they must be honest and fair, but a violation usually requires a more affirmative act than just failing to respond to your correspondence.</p>

<p>Again, I'm not sure exactly what you're asking about, but if this is a real legal dispute, you should consult a real attorney, as the advice available on the Internet is often exactly wrong.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Are there any ethics rules regarding this lawyer's conduct and failure
  to respond?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>No. Typically the rules of so-called "professional conduct" are that the lawyer owes diligence to his client, whereas the rules would say nothing about diligence toward the adversary. Pro hac vice does not subject that attorney to a higher standard than what local lawyers are expected to meet.</p>

<p>If anything, a form of "diligence" toward the adversary can be somewhat enforced through the deadlines stated in court rules (or rules of civil procedure) for the various phases or elements of a lawsuit.</p>

<p>From that standpoint, the deadline to file a response (whether it is responsive pleadings, response to a motion, discovery requests, answers to a request for admissions, and so forth) is a way of converting <em>diligence toward the adversary</em> into <em>diligence toward the attorney's client</em>. That is because the attorney must meet the procedural deadlines for following up with the tasks that representing a client entails: motion/request/other that you initiate through court proceedings.</p>

<p>In any case, the attorney's missing of procedural deadline(s) constitutes misconduct that only his client may denounce (or at least hold him accountable). If the attorney/adversary missed a deadline to comply with a court order, the adversary and/or his attorney might be found guilty for civil contempt and/or be sanctioned.</p>
