By American Bar Association
The American Bar Association Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility released a formal opinion that provides guidance on when a lawyer is required to respond to requests for information from former clients or successor counsel in certain limited circumstances when doing so is necessary to protect client interests and reasonably practicable under Model Rule 1.16(d).
Formal Opinion 520 says that, while lawyers often completely fulfill their obligations under Model Rule 1.16(d) to protect client interests upon termination of the representation by surrendering the file upon request and refunding unearned advanced fees and unexpended costs, there are limited situations where a lawyer must comply with requests for information from successor counsel or a former client. Ordinarily, such a request will require a response when the requested information was acquired by the lawyer during the course of the representation, is unavailable from other sources and is important to the client’s interests in the matter in which the lawyer formerly represented the client. Rule 1.16(d) does not require a lawyer to take steps to acquire information, research and generate written responses or provide further legal services to the client in response to a request for information.
The question considered by this opinion is whether the lawyer may also have an obligation to provide certain unrecorded information acquired in the course of the terminated representation. Specifically, the opinion addresses whether the former lawyer has any obligation under Rule 1.16(d) to respond to a request for information that is not memorialized in file materials, including information explaining or elaborating on the materials contained in a previously surrendered file. Neither the text nor the comment to Rule 1.16 explicitly addresses this question.
Lawyers do not have an obligation under Rule 1.16(d) to provide information that is readily accessible elsewhere or by other means. For example, if the lawyer has surrendered the file according to the law of the jurisdiction, and the former client is asking for information readily available from the court system’s website, the lawyer would have no obligation to provide the information.
The opinion states that it is sometimes necessary for a lawyer who terminated, or is terminating, a representation to convey information that was not recorded and maintained in the client’s file. This duty is limited, however, by the provision that complying with the request actually be necessary “to protect the client’s interests” in the matter undertaken by the lawyer and that compliance be “reasonably practicable.”
The standing committee periodically issues ethics opinions to guide lawyers, courts and the public in interpreting and applying ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Other recent ABA ethics opinions are available online at www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/ethics_opinions.
(https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2026/01/formal-opinion-520-re-disclosure-in-motion-to-withdraw/)
The American Bar Association Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility released a formal opinion that provides guidance on when a lawyer is required to respond to requests for information from former clients or successor counsel in certain limited circumstances when doing so is necessary to protect client interests and reasonably practicable under Model Rule 1.16(d).
Formal Opinion 520 says that, while lawyers often completely fulfill their obligations under Model Rule 1.16(d) to protect client interests upon termination of the representation by surrendering the file upon request and refunding unearned advanced fees and unexpended costs, there are limited situations where a lawyer must comply with requests for information from successor counsel or a former client. Ordinarily, such a request will require a response when the requested information was acquired by the lawyer during the course of the representation, is unavailable from other sources and is important to the client’s interests in the matter in which the lawyer formerly represented the client. Rule 1.16(d) does not require a lawyer to take steps to acquire information, research and generate written responses or provide further legal services to the client in response to a request for information.
The question considered by this opinion is whether the lawyer may also have an obligation to provide certain unrecorded information acquired in the course of the terminated representation. Specifically, the opinion addresses whether the former lawyer has any obligation under Rule 1.16(d) to respond to a request for information that is not memorialized in file materials, including information explaining or elaborating on the materials contained in a previously surrendered file. Neither the text nor the comment to Rule 1.16 explicitly addresses this question.
Lawyers do not have an obligation under Rule 1.16(d) to provide information that is readily accessible elsewhere or by other means. For example, if the lawyer has surrendered the file according to the law of the jurisdiction, and the former client is asking for information readily available from the court system’s website, the lawyer would have no obligation to provide the information.
The opinion states that it is sometimes necessary for a lawyer who terminated, or is terminating, a representation to convey information that was not recorded and maintained in the client’s file. This duty is limited, however, by the provision that complying with the request actually be necessary “to protect the client’s interests” in the matter undertaken by the lawyer and that compliance be “reasonably practicable.”
The standing committee periodically issues ethics opinions to guide lawyers, courts and the public in interpreting and applying ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Other recent ABA ethics opinions are available online at www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/ethics_opinions.
(https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2026/01/formal-opinion-520-re-disclosure-in-motion-to-withdraw/)
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