CPR 290

CPR 290

An attorney who serves as a member of a county or municipal governing board, or State or federal legislative body, or any entity thereunder, or committee thereof, shall not hear or consider any matter coming before that governing body or entity in which that member or his firm has any direct or indirect interest.

Editor's Note: This opinion is overruled in part by RPC 130. RPC 130 rules that a law firm may accept employment on behalf of a governing board upon which its partner sits if such is otherwise lawful.

Note: Upon request of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bar, and attorneys across the state, CPR 290 was referred back to a special sub-committee chaired by J. Guy Revelle, Jr. for further study. The following revision of Proposed CPR 290, which was originally published in Volume 6, Number 1 of The North Carolina Bar Newsletter, is now published for comment before adoptions at the January Council Meeting.

An attorney who serves as a member of a county or municipal governing board, or State or Federal legislative body, or any entity thereunder, or committee thereof, shall not hear or consider any matter coming before that governing body or entity in which that member or his firm has any direct or indirect interest.

Pursuant to such prohibition, it shall be unethical for that member to attempt to influence in any way, publicly or privately, the actions or decisions of the governing body or entity or its staff with respect to any matter on which his partner or associate is appearing; and in any situations in which that member's partner or associate is to appear before the governing body or entity on which he serves, that member shall: (1) disclose in writing or in open meeting to that governing body or entity his relationship to the matter involved, (2) refrain from any expression of opinion, public or private, on, or any formal or informal consideration of, the matter involved, including any communication or other form of contact with other members or staff of the governing body or entity concerning that matter, (3) absent himself from all meetings of the governing body or entity during any discussion or hearing of the matter, (4) withdraw from all voting on the matter, with or without the consent of the governing body or entity.

An attorney may not ethically appear before a governing body or entity having as a member his partner, associate or employee unless said partner, associate or employee has fully complied with the four requirements specified above.

If an attorney or his employee serves as a member of a county or municipal governing board, or State or Federal legislative body or any entity thereunder, or committee thereof, it shall be unethical for his partner, associate or employer to represent such governing body or entity.

It is not unethical as such for an attorney whose spouse or relative is on any county or municipal governing board, or State or Federal legislative body, or any entity thereunder, or committee thereof, to appear before or represent that governing body or entity. However, it is unethical for an attorney to use his relationship to a member of any governing board to gain (or retain) employment or obtain favorable decisions. An attorney whose spouse or relative is a member of such a governing body or entity must always be sensitive to particular circumstances creating a conflict of interest or impropriety in his representation of or appearance before that governing body or entity. This is especially true if the attorney's spouse is a member thereof because of the very nature of the spousal relationship. The same principles should guide an attorney in deciding whether he may appear before or represent an entity whose decisions are appealable to a governing body of which his spouse or relative is a member.