No Duty To Communicate

The North Dakota Supreme Court adopted new Rule Of Professional Conduct 4.5, which requires an attorney who receives a mistakenly sent document to notify the sender of the error. An interesting aspect of the new rule is that the lawyer need not either notify her client of the receipt of the document or abide by the client’s instruction regarding the issue. The rule applies in circumstances where the lawyer knows or “has reason to know” that the transmission of the document is inadvertent. (Mike Frisch)