## Facts

- A tenant filed a putative class action challenging an apartment lease liquidated-damages clause as an illegal penalty and as violating Arkansas consumer-protection and security-deposit statutes.
- The tenant was represented by Legal Aid of Arkansas.
- While the case was pending, attorney Summer McCoy worked at Legal Aid (July–December 2016) in an economic-justice group that primarily handled public-benefits matters, not landlord-tenant litigation.
- McCoy later joined the apartment manager’s in-house legal department (January 2017).
- The tenant moved to disqualify the apartment defendants’ counsel and the entire in-house legal department, asserting McCoy had access to the tenant’s confidential file through Legal Aid’s shared case-management system.
- The circuit court granted the motion, finding an imputed conflict and disqualifying the in-house legal department.
- The apartment defendants appealed the disqualification order.

## Issues

1. Whether the Arkansas Rules of Professional Conduct require disqualification when a lawyer had possible access to a former client’s confidential information but there is no proof the lawyer actually acquired it.
2. Whether any personal conflict under Rule 1.9(b) could be imputed under Rule 1.10 to disqualify the entire in-house legal department on this record.

## Decision

- The Arkansas Supreme Court reversed and remanded the disqualification order.
- The court held disqualification is not required based solely on theoretical access to confidential information; the movant must show the lawyer actually acquired protected information material to the matter.
- The court concluded the tenant did not meet the burden to prove McCoy reviewed the file, participated in the case, or obtained material confidential information.
- Without a showing of an individual conflict, imputed disqualification of the entire in-house legal department was improper.

## Legal Principles

- Disqualification based on former-client conflicts requires evidence the challenged lawyer has actual knowledge of confidential information protected by the rules and material to the current matter; access alone is insufficient.
- Rule 1.9(b) focuses on knowledge of protected information, not the mere possibility of knowledge created by shared systems or organizational structure.
- Imputed disqualification under Rule 1.10 depends on establishing a disqualifying conflict for a lawyer within the firm or legal department.
- Disqualification is a drastic remedy that must be supported by a concrete showing and not used as a strategic tool that needlessly deprives a party of chosen counsel.

## Conclusion

The Arkansas Supreme Court set aside the disqualification of the apartment defendants’ in-house counsel, holding that possible access to a former client’s confidential information does not justify disqualification absent proof the lawyer actually obtained material protected information, and remanded for further proceedings.


Park Apartments at Fayetteville, LP v. Plants, 545 S.W.3d 755 (Ark. 2018)