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In re Kiley | 947 N.E.2d 1, 459 Mass. 645 (2011)

You wouldn’t want your doctor to quit halfway through surgery or have your pilot resign midflight. But what happens when a lawyer decides to quit her job while representing a client in a malpractice case? In the case In re Kiley, we’ll see whether a law firm must continue to represent a client after the attorney that was handling the case quit her job.

In two thousand six, Michael McGibbon entered into a contingent fee agreement with Thomas M. Kiley and Associates, L L P, a law firm. The law firm agreed to represent McGibbon in a malpractice lawsuit. McGibbon and Thomas Kiley personally signed the representation agreement. The law firm assigned Pamela Swift, a lawyer at the firm, to McGibbon’s case. In two thousand seven, Swift began representing McGibbon and filed suit against McGibbon’s doctor. In twenty ten, Swift called and sent a letter to McGibbon informing McGibbon that she would be taking a, quote, “sabbatical from the practice of law,” unquote. Swift told McGibbon that she wouldn’t be affiliated with the law firm anymore and that McGibbon needed to find a new attorney. McGibbon attempted to get a new attorney but was unable find one that would take him as a client.

Swift filed a motion to formally withdraw as McGibbon’s attorney. The trial court granted Swift’s motion but held that McGibbon still had a valid agreement with the law firm and Kiley himself. Because McGibbon’s case was falling behind the ordered time standards, the judge held that Kiley must personally represent McGibbon. Kiley appealed the trial court’s order to the appellate court but was denied. Kiley then appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

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