## Facts

- Marc Seidler served in the Lake County State’s Attorney’s office from 1976 through January 31, 1981, rising to Chief of the Civil Division and later First Assistant State’s Attorney with supervisory responsibility over the office’s civil work for Lake County.
- On February 2, 1981, Seidler joined the private law firm of Rudnick & Wolfe.
- Rudnick & Wolfe represented LaSalle National Bank (as trustee) and Lake Properties Venture in connection with development of a tract known as “Heartland.”
- On June 5, 1981, Rudnick & Wolfe filed suit in federal district court (N.D. Ill.) on behalf of LaSalle National Bank and Lake Properties Venture against the County of Lake and the Village of Grayslake, challenging the governmental defendants’ refusal to allow access to a federally funded regional sewer system for the Heartland development.
- Seidler submitted an affidavit stating he had not revealed any confidential information from his government service to anyone at the firm.
- The firm did not put in place specific screening measures to isolate Seidler from the matter until after Lake County moved to disqualify Seidler and the entire firm several months after the complaint was filed.
- Lake County argued that, given Seidler’s senior role and the nature of the sewer-service dispute, his prior government work was substantially related to the litigation and created an unacceptable risk that confidential governmental information would be used against the county.
- The district court found an appearance of impropriety and ordered disqualification of Seidler and Rudnick & Wolfe from representing the plaintiffs.
- The plaintiffs pursued an interlocutory appeal to the Seventh Circuit, treating the disqualification order as immediately appealable under the collateral-order doctrine.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court properly disqualified a former senior county attorney, and his new firm, from suing the county where the current litigation was substantially related to matters within the attorney’s earlier governmental responsibility and the firm’s screening efforts began only after the disqualification motion.
2. Whether, once a substantial relationship between the prior government role and the current private representation is shown, the former client must prove actual disclosure of confidences, or whether an inference of access to confidential information is enough to support disqualification.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit exercised jurisdiction under the collateral-order doctrine and reviewed the disqualification order.
- The court affirmed the district court’s order disqualifying both Marc Seidler and the firm of Rudnick & Wolfe.
- The court concluded the county had shown a substantial relationship between Seidler’s prior governmental responsibilities and the subject matter of the sewer-access litigation, making it reasonable to infer that Seidler had access to confidential information relevant to the case.
- The court agreed that the late-arriving “Chinese wall” did not cure the conflict in this setting and supported firm-wide disqualification.

## Legal Principles

- A motion to disqualify based on prior representation turns on whether the earlier and current matters are substantially related; where they are, courts generally presume the lawyer had access to client confidences and do not require proof that specific confidences were actually transmitted.
- The “substantial relationship” analysis can be structured as a three-step inquiry: (1) reconstruct the scope of the prior representation (or, for a government lawyer, the scope of responsibility), (2) decide whether it is reasonable to infer the lawyer would have received confidential information during that work, and (3) determine whether that information would be relevant in the current litigation.
- For former government lawyers, ethical limits reflected in DR 9-101(B) and the bar’s concern with public confidence support disqualification when a lawyer moves from a public law office to private practice and participates in a matter connected to work for which the lawyer had substantial responsibility in government.
- Conflicts are typically imputed to the lawyer’s firm; where screening is absent or instituted only after the conflict is raised, a court may find the screen inadequate and order firm-wide disqualification.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit affirmed disqualification of a former Lake County State’s Attorney’s office leader and his new firm from representing private plaintiffs against Lake County and the Village of Grayslake in sewer-access litigation, holding that the prior government responsibilities and the new suit were substantially related, that an inference of access to confidential information supported disqualification without proof of actual disclosure, and that the firm’s late screening efforts did not prevent firm-wide disqualification.


LaSalle National Bank v. Lake County, 703 F.2d 252 (1983)