James Forsyth, the plaintiff in the underlying case, Forsyth v. County of Los Angeles, CV-98-7731-FMC (CWx), is represented by attorney Stephen Yagman and the law firm of Yagman & Yagman & Reichmann. Joseph Reichmann is a' retired United States Magistrate Judge who, five years ago, presided over settlement negotiations in Thomas v. County of Los Angeles, CV-93-5390-JSL (JRx). Forsyth and Thomas are police brutality cases, arising out of different incidents separated in time by several years. They are related only in the sense that the County of Los Angeles and one of its deputy sheriffs, Scott Hoglund, are defendants in both cases.
Defendants moved to disqualify the Yag-man firm on the ground that, during the settlement negotiations in Thomas, Reich-mann met with defense counsel ex parte and therefore had access to confidential information pertaining to the County of Los Angeles and Deputy Sheriff Hoglund. Yagman did not contest the disqualification of Reichmann but proffered the following evidence: Reichmann joined the Yagman firm as a partner on November 1, 1999, and has had no involvement in the Forsyth case. Moreover, a week before Reich-mann joined the firm, Stephen Yagman removed all of the files pertaining to the case to his home and instructed the firm’s only other lawyer, partner Marion Yag-man, not to discuss the case with Reich-mann. Reichmann himself submitted a declaration stating that he had no recollection of the settlement discussions in Thomas, and that he does not recall having received any confidential information from defendants’ lawyer in that case. Reich-mann, moreover, explained that “as a magistrate judge from 1980 to 1996, it was my long-standing, regular, and continuing practice in conducting settlement conferences (1) not to go into the merits of actions, (2) not to request or receive either confidential or strategic information from counsel, and (3) to discuss only monetary matters.” Reichmann Decl. at 2, Ex. 6 to Pet. for Writ of Mandamus.
For their part, defendants submitted the declaration of Richard Kemalyan, defense counsel in Thomas, who stated as follows: “I do not have a specific recollection of the details of what communications were made between declarant and Magistrate Judge Reichman [sic] outside the presence of plaintiffs counsel. I am sure that in the normal course of the Settlement Conference, I did have private and confidential communications with Magistrate Judge Reichman [sic]. I cannot recall the details of those communications.” Kemalyan Decl. at 1, Ex. 5 to Pet. for Writ of Mandamus.
The district court denied the motion to disqualify the Yagman firm, finding no evidence that Reichmann received confidential information during the settlement negotiations in Thomas. The court also found that the wall of confidentiality erected to shield Reichmann from the Yagmans was adequate to protect the interests of the defendants. Defendants brought this petition for a writ of mandamus seeking reversal of the district court’s order and disqualification of the Yagman firm. We stayed the trial while we considered the petition. See County of Los Angeles v. United States Dist. Court, No. 00-70077 (9th Cir. Jan.31, 2000) (unpublished order).
Until recently, the practice of judicial officers returning to law firms was rare, and the relevant authorities are sparse. The case law draws a distinction between situations where a judicial officer acted merely as an adjudicator and those where he acted as a mediator or settlement judge. The difference is based on the fact that mediators are far more likely than
[Mediation] ... differs significantly from more formal adversarial proceedings at which an adjudicative officer presides. Most importantly, the mediator is not merely charged with being impartial, but with receiving and preserving confidences in much the same manner as the client’s attorney. In fact, the success of mediation depends largely on the willingness of the parties to freely disclose their intentions, desires, and the strengths and weaknesses of their case; and upon the ability of the mediator to maintain a neutral position while carefully preserving the confidences that have been revealed....
Adversarial proceedings, on the other hand, are characterized by vigorous attempts to maintain confidences. Attorneys who have received such confidential information are under a strict duty to avoid, without the consent of the client, any disclosures of that information. And because adjudicators do not occupy a relationship of confidence and trust with the parties akin to that occupied by the attorneys, they do not, for the most part, have access to those confidences. Thus, although mediators function in some ways as neutral coordinators of dispute resolution, they also assume the role of a confidant, and it is that aspect of their role that distinguishes them from adjudicators.
Poly Software Int'l., Inc. v. Su,
Adjudicators do sometimes become privy to confidential information, such as when they must rule on claims of privilege. However, the distinction between adjudicators and mediators is useful in most cases. Thus, when a judicial officer who served as an adjudicator returns to practice, his participation as a lawyer will normally be constrained only by Rule 1.12(a) of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which provides: “[A] lawyer shall not represent anyone in connection with a matter in which the lawyer participated personally and substantially as a judge or other adjudicative officer ... unless all parties to the proceeding consent after consultation.”
The rule is quite different for a judge who has participated in mediation or settlement efforts, or who has otherwise received confidential information from the parties in a case. As explained in Poly Software, such a judge becomes a confidant of the parties, on a par with the parties’ own lawyers. Under those circumstances, the judge will be conclusively presumed to have received client confidences in the course of the mediation,
The law firms facing disqualification in Cho and McKenzie were handling the very cases over which the former judges had presided. See Cho,
We explained the “substantially factually related” standard in Trone v. Smith,
Yet, we need not leave this matter unresolved and open for future dispute, which would further delay resolution of the underlying litigation. We will assume the two cases are substantially related, so Reichmann is presumed to have learned confidential information in Thomas that is relevant to Forsyth. This, in turn, will give rise to the further presumption that
Because we apply state law in determining matters of disqualification, we must follow the reasoned view of the state supreme court when it has spoken on the issue. See Iacono Structural Eng’r,
But the California Supreme Court has recently cast doubt on this approach. In People ex rel. Dep’t of Corps. v. Speedee Oil Change Sys., Inc.,
Speedee Oil was the kind of case most likely to give rise to automatic disqualification because the same firm represented adverse parties in the same litigation. The California Supreme Court recognized that “discrete, successive conflicting representations in substantially related matters” — as are presented in our case — may pose less of a threat to the attorney-client relationship. Id. Magistrate Judge Reich-mann joined the Yagman firm years after presiding over the Thomas settlement negotiations, and the Yagman firm does not seek to represent a party to the Thomas litigation. The current case, though we assume it to be related, involves largely different facts. These circumstances create an even more compelling case than Speedee Oil, where the court nonetheless refused to hold that the presumption is irrebuttable.
In the time since Troné left this question open, several of our sister circuits have held that a firm can rebut the presumption of shared confidences when it seeks to represent a party in a case substantially related to one in which a new member of the firm has participated. See, e.g., Manning,
We would nevertheless accept the costs of automatic disqualification, if it were the only way to ensure that lawyers honor their duties of confidentiality and loyalty. But it is not. A client’s confidences can also be kept inviolate by adopting measures to quarantine the tainted lawyer. An ethical wall, when implemented in a timely and effective way, can rebut the presumption that a lawyer has contaminated the entire firm. The Model Rules explicitly approve the use of screening procedures to avoid vicarious disqualification where a former judicial officer or government lawyer has joined the firm. See id. Rules l.ll(a)-(b), 1.12(c)(1); see also Higdon v. Superior Court,
Here, Stephen Yagman removed all files concerning the Forsyth case from the law office before Reichmann joined the firm; all attorneys were instructed not to discuss the case with Reichmann. The district court found “ample evidence of appropriate screening measures: all members of the firm have declared that they have not discussed the pending case and that Reich-mann does not have access to the case file.” Order Denying Defs.’ Mot. to Disqualify PL’s Counsel, Forsyth v. County of Los Angeles, No. 98-7731-FMC (CWx) (C.D.Cal. Dec. 21, 1999), at 6. We agree
The changing realities of law practice call for a more functional approach to disqualification than in the past. In resolving this case, we take our cue from the California Supreme Court’s recent indication that it may be inclined to follow the path taken by other federal courts. At the same time, we contradict no court of appeal decision directly on point. Clio, which is the closest to our fact pattern, involved a firm seeking to represent a party to the same litigation that a judge had mediated. We hold that the vicarious disqualification of a firm does not automatically follow the personal disqualification of a former settlement judge, where the settlement negotiations are substantially related (but not identical) to the current representation. Screening mechanisms that are both timely and effective, as the Yagman firm erected here, will rebut the presumption that the former judge disclosed confidences to other members of the firm. Because the district court here found that the ethical wall adopted by the Yagman firm was being scrupulously enforced and there is no reasonable possibility that confidential information will leak to Yagman from Reichmann, or vice versa, we find no basis on which to disqualify the Yagman firm from serving as counsel for plaintiff Forsyth.
DENIED.
Notes
. Though the Model Rules of Professional Conduct have not been adopted as binding under California law (which governs here), see State Compensation Ins. Fund v. WPS, Inc.,
. The district court erred by inquiring whether confidential information actually passed from the parties to the mediator. As this case demonstrates, memories as to what transpired during these off-the-record proceedings are likely to be dim, making the fact-finding process highly perilous. More importantly, allowing an inquiry into what transpired during settlement negotiations will surely chill the candor of the parties in speaking to the mediator. Suffice to say that the mediation process inherently leads to the disclosure of confidential information, as Reichmann's declaration confirms. While Reichmann claims not to have requested or
. The courts did not, however, apply this rule without exception. See Klein,