Ken Rosen is an adviser at Ken Rosen Advisors PC offers analysis worth noting: “How Jackson Walker Settlement Will Affect Conflict Checks” —

• “Jackson Walker LLP’s $15 million settlement with the U.S. Trustee, filed as a term sheet on Aug. 2, has been read as the end of the saga in which the firm had cases before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David R. Jones while one of its partners was romantically involved with the judge.”
• “David R. Jones while one of its partners was romantically involved with the judge. It reads better as a template: The settlement of In re: Professional Fee Matters Concerning the Jackson Walker Law Firm is effectively a contract between one firm and the government, and every firm practicing in the bankruptcy courts should expect to be held to its terms.[1] The money is the least consequential part.”
• “In the settlement, Jackson Walker agreed to retain an independent third party to confirm that its conflicts screening and disclosure practices work, and to file a report regarding same on the court record. Neither the Bankruptcy Code nor the rule requires that step. One U.S. Trustee’s office has now obtained it by contract, after three years of litigation and a threatened disgorgement of up to $23 million across 33 cases.”
• “Once the reviewer’s report is filed, restructuring firms will measure their conflicts intake and disclosure practices against it, because it will be the only public description of a screening system the U.S. Trustee has accepted. The U.S. Trustee Program is a single national program; what one office obtained in Houston, every office can request. And a court weighing a show-cause order or a disgorgement motion will have a reference point it lacks today.”
• “U.S. Bankruptcy Code, Rule 2014, requires a professional to disclose the connections it knows about and says nothing about the systems that produce that knowledge. The remedy the parties negotiated addresses something far more ordinary than the facts that produced it: whether the firm’s conflict-check system actually finds the connections the rule requires it to disclose. The Jackson Walker settlement fills that gap by consent order rather than by rule.”
• “The reason a negotiated document can function as the standard is that no other document does. Case law defines the duty; nothing defines the method. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Tina Brozman stated the governing principle in 1994 in In re: Leslie Fay Companies Inc., where Weil Gotshal & Manges failed to disclose connections to audit committee members, the auditor and a major creditor.”
• “Where disclosure itself fails, the cause is often clerical, and that is the territory the Jackson Walker undertakings occupy.”
• “A matter opened years earlier under a shortened client name, a lateral partner’s former engagements never loaded into the database, an affiliate recorded under a trade name — none of these are visible to the partner who signs the declaration, and none are cured by a rule that asks only what the firm knows. The undertakings reach the system that produces the knowledge.”
• “A document with no precedential force can still set the benchmark, and the mechanism is familiar to this bar. The U.S. Trustee has used settlements this way before: Kaye Scholer paid $1.5 million in the GSC Group Inc. bankruptcy case in 2013 and adopted conflict-check and disclosure policies approved by an independent expert, and McKinsey & Co. paid $15 million in 2019 over its disclosures.”
• “The standard is arriving as firms become harder to screen. Fifty-nine law firm mergers closed in 2025, and 43 more have been completed in the first half of this year, by Fairfax Associates’ count, and the July 1 combination of Hogan Lovells and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, the largest in the profession’s history, produced a firm of more than 3,200 lawyers.”
• “A merger requires two firms’ client and matter histories, built over decades under different intake conventions, to reconcile into one conflicts database while the combined firm keeps opening matters, and lateral hiring adds relationships no intake form captured. That benchmark will be applied to firms several times Jackson Walker’s size while their conflicts databases are still being combined.”

“US judge urged to oust law firm Paul Weiss from sugar price-fixing case” —

• “A group of food manufacturers is urging a federal judge to bar law firm Paul Weiss from defending Domino Sugar and its owner ASR Group in a lawsuit over alleged price-fixing in ​the sugar industry, arguing that the firm earlier tried to represent them as plaintiffs in the ‌case. Kraft Heinz, Mondelēz Global, Nestle USA, Hershey and other plaintiffs said in a filing on Tuesday in the federal court in Minnesota that they provided confidential strategy and pricing data to Paul Weiss in 2024 when they were preparing to bring the case and ​the law firm was vying to represent them.”
• “They asked the court to order Paul Weiss to explain ​why it should not be disqualified, arguing that its participation in the case creates conflicts ⁠of interest and that the firm failed to seek or obtain their consent before agreeing to represent ASR ​Group.”
• “According to the filing, Paul Weiss has proposed hiring separate lawyers to defend ASR against Kraft Heinz’s claims specifically, ​because Kraft Heinz is a current client of the firm. The food manufacturers called that proposal ‘unworkable.'”
• “Paul Weiss and a lead attorney for ASR Group at the firm, Djordje Petkoski, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. An outside lawyer for the firm ​in the conflict dispute also did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ASR has denied the plaintiffs’ price-fixing ​claims.”
• “Paul Weiss in court filings has denied that its defense of ASR Group creates a conflict, arguing that the lawyers representing ‌the ⁠company were not involved in discussions with the plaintiffs in 2024. In a letter earlier this year to the food manufacturers, Paul Weiss’ general counsel Kenneth Schneider said the firm’s ‘representation of ASR and Domino is not adverse to Kraft Heinz and is in compliance with our ethical obligations.'”
• “The lead Paul Weiss attorneys who earlier sought to represent the ​food manufacturers, including William ​Isaacson, left the firm last year ⁠to open a new law firm.”
• “Paul Weiss became involved in the case as defense counsel for ASR and Domino in September last year, when Petkoski, the lead attorney for ​the companies, joined Paul Weiss from rival law firm A&O Shearman.”

Dear Ethics Lawyer writes: “Arguing for Current Client Adverse to Position Taken for Former Client” —

• “Q: Dear Ethics Lawyer, I know that in the past you have answered questions about so-called ‘positional conflicts,’ when a lawyer or the lawyer’s firm argues opposing legal arguments for different current clients at the same time, and the limited circumstances in which those can become Rule 1.7(a)(2) material limitation conflicts requiring withdrawal or clients’ consent. I have a situation that’s a bit different.”
• “Two years ago, for a now-former client, I successfully argued the application of a state statute at the trial court level to limit the client’s liability. The case resulted in a judgment for that client, the matter is now over, and we no longer represent them. No appeal was taken, and no precedential decision resulted. Now, for a different client, I plan to argue the opposite side of that question, i.e., that the statute in question does not limit liability of one in our former client’s position. So this is in essence a question about whether I could have a ‘positional conflict’ arising from an argument made in the past for a former client that would fall within Rule 1.7(a)(2).”
• “A: It is theoretically possible, but not very likely. As you may recall, ‘positional conflicts’ caused by representation of two or more current clients usually only arise when the opposing positions are taken in circumstances in which one matter could influence the outcome of the other, e.g., material opposing arguments made in the same court or jurisdiction at the same time, or where the outcome of one argument could be cited in the other in a controlling or influential manner. Here, that does not appear to be the case, given that the matter for your former client is over, and the outcome was not precedential. Under Rule 1.9, your conflict duties to your former client are generally limited to preserving the confidentiality of their confidential information and refraining from adversity to them in the same or a substantially similar matter. I assume that does not apply here. If it does, then you have a conflict under that rule, regardless of the application of Rule 1.7(a)(2). If not, a positional conflict here is unlikely.”
• “I am not aware of a case in which arguments made for a current client that conflict with those made for a former client have been found to be a ‘material limitation’ conflict when duties under Rule 1.9 have not also applied. Rule 1.7(a)(2) includes responsibilities to a ‘former client’ within the list of things that can give rise to a material limitation conflict, and the possibility is referenced in Comment 9 to the rule, but only in reference to Rule 1.9.”
• “Nonetheless, you should consider whether your successful argument in the prior case could be used to your current client’s detriment simply because you made it, or for some other reason that could limit your ability to advance the opposing argument now. Under Rule 1.4, if not also under Rule 1.7(a)(2), it would be wise to disclose the facts to your current client and seek advice from ethics counsel in a close case.”
• “Although remote, a situation could be imagined in which other considerations might apply. For example, there must be a reason that you believe an argument opposite your previous ‘winning’ argument could be successful. There may be a perfectly appropriate reason, such as intervening authority. But, if the reason is something that implicates your personal interests, that could change the calculus. Suppose faulty legal research or analysis in the earlier matter could now be exposed, creating a risk of a malpractice claim or embarrassment for you and a risk to your former client who may have relied on the prior outcome. That exposure might be taken to give you an incentive to argue less vigorously for your current client. In that event your current client, if unsuccessful, could question the outcome regardless of your level of effort. There is no reason to believe that is the case here, but the key to avoiding material limitation conflicts is to examine the interests of the lawyer that might serve to limit the lawyer’s performance or later be found to have done so.”