## Facts

- Donald L. Wyatt, Jr., a New Hampshire attorney, represented David Stacy on personal matters beginning in the late 1990s, including matters involving trusts for Stacy’s benefit.
- Wyatt’s firm prepared a 2000 general power of attorney naming Michel Brault (Wyatt’s friend and former corporate client) as Stacy’s attorney-in-fact.
- After Stacy’s relationship with his mother deteriorated, Wyatt represented Stacy in negotiations resulting in a May 2001 contract requiring Stacy to seek a voluntary conservatorship in New Hampshire with Brault as conservator; the contract would terminate if Stacy ended the conservatorship.
- The probate court approved the voluntary conservatorship and appointed Brault as conservator.
- Wyatt continued representing Stacy personally while also being retained by Brault to represent the conservatorship estate and advise Brault regarding conservatorship administration.
- Wyatt later learned Brault was not properly performing fiduciary duties and also learned Stacy and his wife attempted to bypass conservatorship controls through lines of credit and other accounts.
- Despite foreseeable and developing adversity between Stacy’s interests and Brault’s fiduciary obligations, Wyatt continued the dual representation and facilitated additional support services (including use of his paralegal) without documented, informed conflict consent.

## Issues

1. Whether Wyatt violated N.H. R. Prof. Conduct 1.7 by concurrently (and later successively) representing Stacy and Brault in matters creating a material limitation and adversity without informed consent after adequate consultation.
2. Whether New Hampshire recognizes a “primary-derivative client” doctrine such that counsel for a conservator has direct attorney-client duties to the ward, affecting the conflict analysis.
3. What sanction was appropriate under the ABA Standards and New Hampshire precedent.

## Decision

- The court found Wyatt violated Rule 1.7 by undertaking and maintaining representations that were or became materially limited by duties owed to another client, without adequate consultation and informed consent.
- The court declined to adopt the primary-derivative client doctrine and held that representing a conservator does not, by itself, create an attorney-client relationship with the ward or transfer the conservator’s fiduciary duties to the lawyer.
- Although disbarment was treated as the baseline sanction for the misconduct, the court imposed a two-year suspension after weighing aggravating and mitigating factors.
- Wyatt was suspended from the practice of law for two years.

## Legal Principles

- A concurrent-conflict violation exists when a representation may be materially limited by the lawyer’s responsibilities to another client; direct adversity at the outset is not required.
- A lawyer who represents both a fiduciary and the beneficiary must identify foreseeable material limitations, fully consult with each client, and obtain informed consent if the representation is to proceed; absent such consent, the conflict is not cured.
- A lawyer for a conservator represents the conservator (and the conservatorship estate) and does not automatically enter an attorney-client relationship with the ward merely because the conservator owes fiduciary duties to the ward.
- The Rules of Professional Conduct govern disciplinary obligations and are not expanded by importing fiduciary duties owed by a client to third parties.
- In serious fiduciary-setting conflict cases, disbarment may be the presumptive sanction, but mitigation can justify a substantial reduction.

## Conclusion

The court disciplined an attorney for non-waived concurrent conflicts arising from representing both a ward and the ward’s conservator, rejected a doctrine that would treat the ward as a derivative client of the conservator’s lawyer, and imposed a two-year suspension after applying the ABA Standards and considering aggravation and mitigation.


In re Wyatt’s Case, 159 N.H. 285, 982 A.2d 396 (N.H. 2009)