CASSIDY E. CHIVERS

Cassidy E. Chivers has been representing lawyers and law firms in malpractice and other civil litigation for more than 20 years. But in about 2015, she “started diversifying my practice in a really interesting way,” she said.

That’s when she and a partner began advising lawyers and law firms on how to stay out of trouble and how to respond when trouble happens. She is the co-lead of Barron & Newburger’s risk management program, called Attorneys Risk Management, which she said helps lawyers “arm” themselves against complex claims and potential issues.

“We basically provide risk management services and ethics advice to insureds under an arrangement we have with a number of insurance companies.” Their clients are primarily solos and small firms with malpractice policies from the companies. They can contact Chivers’ group to answer an ethics question, draft a conflicts waiver or help mitigate a malpractice risk.

“It’s anything under the sun in terms of ethics complications,” she said.

Often when a lawyer or firm asks her for risk management help, the insured has discovered an error. Chivers determines how to fix the problem before it turns into a claim. “That’s the best scenario,” she said. “How do we mitigate the risk of the claim? If there is a claim, how do you mitigate the risk that it’s going to turn into a bigger claim?”

She often begins with a sort of therapy session with the lawyer to point out that everyone makes mistakes and clients can be understanding.

“A lot of it is advising lawyers how to effectively communicate with the client,” she said. “And that goes a long way to avoiding what can turn into a very contentious and emotional lawsuit.”

Sometimes, her ARM program helps insured lawyers before they have a problem. “I do consultations all the time.” Those cover ethics, avoiding risk, having the right policies and procedures in place and even succession plans for if the lawyer retires or dies.

For larger firms that take care of their own risk management, Chivers and her group sometimes are retained to conduct more comprehensive audits of ethics and risk-related policies, procedures and training. She also advises general counsels of national and international law firms about California risk management and ethics issues.

In addition to her risk-management work, she represents lawyers in State Bar discipline matters, and she defends attorneys in two or three malpractice lawsuits a year. She is a certified specialist in legal malpractice law. In those cases, she said, “I’ve been pretty lucky in the last couple of years. I’ve gotten clients out on demurrers on statute of limitations grounds.”

She also has been quite successful in blocking lawsuits by third parties using anti-SLAPP motions. “Those are always fun to do. … I like the quickness of them.”

Chivers is in her second year as a member of the State Bar’s Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct, where her major project at the moment is helping draft an opinion on the ethics and conflicts issues unique to in-house attorneys.

– Don DeBenedictis