When a lawyers tries to withdraw for a client’s failure to pay, the lawyer must take care to avoid breaching the Rule 1.6 duty of confidentiality, according to the December 2016 opinion. But what does this mean, practically speaking?  I see this as yet another tension between the law as a profession v. the law as a business.

“If a buyer repudiates a contract, the seller can cancel without judicial approval. A lawyer cannot do so, necessarily, when a client repudiates a contract by failing to pay. This reality existed before this opinion; the opinion does not change things. But it is notable that the structure of the process found in this opinion increases uncertainty for the lawyer and therefore the costs of doing business. A lawyer can’t be a professional unless she can get paid.”

More thoughts via the ABA Journal article Lawyers Should Tread Carefully Before Quitting a Troublesome Client.