Rule 6.5 Nonprofit and Court-annexed Limited Legal Services Programs

This rule covers lawyers who volunteer for short-term legal help programs run by courts or nonprofit groups, like legal advice clinics or hotlines. These programs give quick, one-time help to people, without any plan for the lawyer to keep representing them afterward.

Normally, lawyers have to check carefully for conflicts of interest before helping someone, including conflicts based on other clients they represent or other lawyers in their firm represent. This rule relaxes those requirements for these short-term volunteer programs. A lawyer only has to worry about a conflict if they actually know about one. They don't have to investigate or cross-check every client their firm has ever worked with.

The rule also normally says that if one lawyer in a firm has a conflict, everyone in that firm is blocked from helping the client too. This rule removes that restriction for short-term volunteer work, unless the volunteer lawyer actually knows that someone else in their firm is blocked from the case for conflict reasons.

The point of this rule is to make it easier for lawyers to volunteer their time for quick legal help. Without this rule, the strict conflict-checking requirements would make it too hard for lawyers to participate in these clinics, and fewer people would get help.