Conflicts in the Corporate Family: Professor Wolfram Has It Almost Right

Authors

Lawrence J. FoxFollow

Publication Date

1-1-1999

Introduction

Chuck Wolfram was far too modest in telling the story about the Chuck & Larry Show. We have, in fact, had the privilege of debating each other most recently on the Today Show where the question was whether Vince Foster's lawyer should be forced to turn over the notes of his last interview with his now famous, now deceased client. After the show I received a telephone call from my mother. She told me, in obligatory motherly fashion, both how handsome and how articulate I was. But in the end she told me she agreed with Professor Wolfram entirely because she really wanted to know what was in those notes. I guess I didn't win that debate. Maybe today, without my mother in the audience, I can win this debate on conflicts of interest.

The truth is Professor Wolfram and I have much less to debate this time. Indeed, I was, by and large, very happy to read Professor Wolfram's paper. Nobody has done a better job of putting a stake in the heart of the reasoning behind the majority opinion issued by the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility with respect to conflicts in the corporate family, Formal Opinion 95-390. There is so much to celebrate in his paper that, as I describe the places where he and I differ, I hope he will keep in mind the many issues on which we agree. What I hope to do today is persuade Professor Wolfram that now that he is almost all the way there, he actually wants to go the last mile and embrace the dissenting opinion, which I continue to maintain got it quite right.

Recommended Citation

Fox, Lawrence J. (1999) "Conflicts in the Corporate Family: Professor Wolfram Has It Almost Right," Journal of the Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics: Vol. 2, Article 26.
Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/jisle/vol2/iss1/26