Elizabeth L. Bradley

El Segundo

Professional Responsibility, Ethics, and Legal Malpractice

Six months ago, Bradley began a four-year term on the State Bar’s Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct, the group that puts out advisory opinions on tricky legal ethics issues to help guide practitioners.

She was also a founder in 2019 of the California Lawyers Association’s Ethics Committee, which writes such opinions and comments on proposed laws or rules affecting California lawyers. And she is a member and the immediate past chair of the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s very similar Professional Responsibility and Ethics Committee.

“I think it’s incredibly important,” Bradley said about the work. “It’s very rewarding, and I’m committed to it separate and apart from what’s happening in my cases.”

In her cases, Bradley represents plaintiffs suing lawyers for legal malpractice, breaches of fiduciary duty and conflicts of interest.

Her three committees have twin goals of protecting the public and protecting the profession in general, she said. As a plaintiffs’ attorney, she said she leans more towards protecting the public than many of her peers, who tend to be defense attorneys.

But both goals are necessary. “The more that these committees clarify the rules and give guidance to lawyers on how to interpret and apply the rules in their daily practice, the better off everyone is, including the public, the clients, the lawyers, and the legal community,” she said.

Bradley started on the county bar panel in 2017, the CLA committee two years later and the State Bar committee two years after that. She expected some redundant efforts, but that turned out not to be a problem. “There are just never-ending ways that you can explore and approach these ethics matters. All you need to do is slightly change the fact pattern, and you’ve got a whole different ball of wax.”

One ethical problem that comes up often in her practice is conflicts of interest. That surprises her because the state Supreme Court toughened lawyers’ duty to disclose conflicts in a landmark 2018 ruling. Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP v. J-M Manufacturing Co. Inc., 6 Cal.5th 59 (Cal. 2018).

The big takeaway from the decision is that an advance waiver of conflicts in a retainer agreement doesn’t relieve the lawyer of the duty to disclose known conflicts to clients. That sort of blanket waiver “is not a substitute for actual disclosure and informed consent,” she said.

After the decision, Bradley and her firm took over representing the client in Superior Court as Sheppard Mullin strove to prove what it ought to be paid for its work as quantum meruit. Under the high court’s ruling, the firm couldn’t simply rely on its fee agreement as a measure, and Bradley’s client perhaps had a right to discover the firm’s profits. Instead, the case was settled in January 2020.

-- Don Debenedictis