ML19329C955

Discusses Hart 751011 Ltr Demanding Withdrawal of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey from Representing Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co in NRC Proceedings.Law Firm Will Continue to Represent Util.Squire,Sanders & Dempsey 750825 Ltr Encl

ML19329C955
Person / Time
Site:	Davis Besse, Perry
Issue date:	10/27/1975
From:	Jason White SQUIRE, SANDERS & DEMPSEY
To:	Jennifer Davis CLEVELAND, OH
References
NUDOCS 8002200929
Download: ML19329C955 (5)

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James B. Davis, Csq. p Director of Law 0 p[]

City of Cleveland yg U {0, acen 213, City dall .

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Citveland, Chio 44114 0

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Dear Mr. Davis:

We have raviewed Mr. F. art's letter of October ll,1975, to our '

partner, J :hn Lansdala, denanding the vichdr: .ml off t' tic firm frec repreccute: ion of Tha Cluveland Electric Illuuinating Conpa.rt in certain proccadinga before the .iuclear Regulatory Con =1:s ica and stating that should we "nttempt to represcat C.E.I. before" the Cecaicaion, ycu vill each our retuvai es counsel. As you kno We enterea our appearance in early Februcry 197!, in the first of the procacdings before tnat Cem-nission in which th- City of Claveland Ica interver ed. We have been actively advising the C gany with respect to ti at r.at ter siaca that ti:c aad expect to centinua to do so and will not withdraw our appears.nce.

The reasons atacad for uhinr; a similar respcase wit'a respect to : ainilar-de=end as to the pending litigatf ou in tha United Statas Dictrict Court in Clevelund, vitich we set cut in our letter to you of August 25, 1975, apply here.

Mr. Hart's latter to Mr. Lansdala does not indicata any distribution of that letter to others. Ecwever, we have learned that it was diatrih-utad at 1 cast to the Nuclear Regulatory Cc=aicsica cnd to certain other counsel in the proceedings before that Ccmissico by your W .shington counsel, Mr. Coldber;;, and we assu=e to the entira service llat in the N2C proceadinga On that assu=ption, vc are sandir.g a copy of this lettar . rad of our latter to you of Aupct 25, 1975 to the persona shown on that service list. Va request that you.. advise us of the e:r.act dia--

tribution list for Mr. Hart's letter.-

In our letter we pointed out that we had been retained by the City in a nurser of r.atters subsequent to our participation in the Nuclear

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Jmacs 3. Davis, Esq. October 27, 1975-Director of Law City of Clevelanc Page Two Regulatory Co.=11ssion proceedings. fa view of the wide distribution given to fr. ilart's Ictter of Octcbc 11 to the perscna enga;;od in that proceeding, we cannot ra frahl from pointint out Sat, subsequent to our letter to you of !.ueust 25. tim City iras sour.ht eer advice in several additianal matters. -

'lery truly yours, Squire. , Sanderu a Der.pocy .

by _ , , , _ _ _ , _ , _ _ ,

. Chair an Jack L. White /:2 cc: Ecbert D. Hart, Esc.

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clpaabde$nc&u @$r+fwy James B. Davis, Director Auguac 25, 1975 of Law

• Cleveland City llall Page Two such infernation. We have never disclosed to others, without the City's~

consent, any ecnfidential information uhich we obtained in the cour.,c of City representation. If you believe there is any iafor=ation relevant to the pe: ding case or any instance in which we Save disclosed to others confidential inforratica acquired in :he course of our representation of the City, vou should bring it to our attentien imediately.

Secondly, va have nct in our representation of the City given ad-vice to it, or ta others on its behalf, with rescect to an'f re.tter chich will be at issn: in :i,c District Court acticn. The City is not dependent upon us Tr_arally for lav.al advice, as ;;r. aart' , reference to cur "ren-eral raprt?c.ntation of the City" t.d shc ir ply to person.i not far.iliar with tha nature or our past and present represeatatica of the City.

Also, <suri;g more than sixty-five yearc of representation of both the City of Clevel_2d and the Illuninating Cocpany, uur representation of each has been G1 the full Lnowledge and acquiesepace of the other.

This has not been a u.:iyte situation. Throughout the vears in which we have represented the City vith respect to a wide variety of matte.rs, we also have representee etner public bodies and many pri/ ate busin.: aces which fro = time to tiv. have problers with the City. Sotecimes these problers have led to ditforences of opinion between the City and our cther client, se=a of which could not be resolved without litigation.

This characteristic of our practice has been well known to the City and to our other clienta. Until the questica was raised by Mr. Hart, ao cne has suggested that cur frequent represcutation of the City was in total conflict with representation of other clients in satters involving the City.

Finally, for more than a year the City has been tavolvad.in a dia-pute befora the 3oclear 2egulatory Cc:=:ission with tac 111m 'nating Cc=-

pany and the other defendants in the Diacrict Cour. liti;'ation. That dispute has involved cla1=s similiar to those which the City is asserting in the Dictrict Court litigation. Although the defendants aa a group (CAPCO) have been represcuted in tha Fagulacot f Co:::ission proceedings by other counsel, our fir =, througnout the period of that proceeding, has furnished counsel to the Illu=inating Cec.pany with respect to the proceedings, vich the full'knowled;;c of the City. No objection has i

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James 3. Davis, Director August 25, 1975 of Law C1cveland City Hall Page Three heretofore been raised by any responsible representativa of the City with respect to that representatica. During that period the City has continued to requent our assistance fu a vide variety of difficdle municipal problens, presumably with the lawsledga of the Department of Law. This could not have occurred if it had been the viev of the City that cur representntion of the Ill.u.dnating Cc::pany pravented us fram providing cc:peccat t.nprejudiced service to the City.

For us nou to withdrx.t frot: this a.ction veuld be to deny to tha Illuminating Co_:>any the benefit of oor familiarity vich the case and the preparatorf isork which we have done with res c ct to it and the bene-fit of cur fa.111arity with its basinm;3 acquired over a period of c.aay years of :s<.ponsibility for many of its cajor lezni problet:s. Je are .

forced to the conclusion that vi tadra"41 would he a breacn of our pro-fessional rasnensiSility to the Illuminatin; r'on;n:" .

Our responsibility to all'of cur other clients, public and private, who cay have de alim e with the City requires that ue avoid a.y sericus risk that ef fective apresentation of their interests in any dispute which ::ight arice %. seen them and the City coull be delayed er ot!.er-visc prejudiced by the City's opposition to our participation in such representation on the 3cneral 3 ound that we are epresenting the CLty in unrelated natters. or have done so in tue past. Consequently, if the Departrent of Law 2dheres to the po< ition curfested by Mr. Fart we shal:

be obliged to declina to p;ive any further legal n'dvice to the City or nnv of its representatives on any c:atter whatsoever.

'de would greatly regret the necessity for tahing such action. Also, we vould recognize the li::itations that' car profession 1 responsibility to the City impose on our ri;;ht to uithdraw fron representation of the City on pending : utters. Our obligation to tae City h this respect is the sa:4 as the responsibility to the Illu::dnating Cormany which Lars cur withdrawal ~ tre:t its representation in' the District Court action.

Subj ect to that obli:2 tion, if the City coves t'o have our f t n reatoved  ;

froct the District Court case, we shall seek to withdraw from all rendinc representatien of the City and shall undertake no new assignments for i it until our freede:i to do so without prejudice to the interest of other 1 clients has been established.

Respectfully, Gquire, Sandern 4 Dempsev

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Ja 4s E. Davis, Director of Law City Hall 601 Lakeside Avenue, N.*4.

Cleveland, Ghic 44114

Dear Mr. Davis:

Our fic h .s carefully censidered the suycstion :ude in p.cbert Hart's letter of Au,3ust 5 to eur partner, John L.rsdale, that we itn-dr:re from our representation of the Cleveland lectr!.c Illu:.inating Co= pan / in Civil Action C-75-560 pending in the United Stateo District Court in Cleveland. Since the 111unic.: ting Conpany w.as entitled to be advised of thst vn:;estion and its possible inpact en the prepar repre-sentation of chat C::pany, the sugestion was cot cunicated to the can.n;e-

=cnt of the Ille ating Co=psny which has requestec us to centinue to represent it la the liti?ation. 1.s a recult of that request and our otm thorough review .of c:.+ 3atter, we =uat declina te withdr.~4 volun-tarily. It follevs that if jeu centinue to believe that there is a questien as to the .-repriety of our representaticu of the 111ur.inatin:;

Co'gany in this case, you should croeptly file an appropriate : otion to secure a ruling from the Ccure en .that issue.

However, the fact that the City of Cleveland has long been a valuad client of our firn entitles you to c. ore then a siemry statement of our ,

position. Va greatly value the opportantties we have had to give legai advice to the City. We always have represented .it with co=plete loyalty and the exercice of cur best of forts ca it0 behalf. F.ven though we do not share your vies as to our disqualification to represent the Illu=ina-u ting Co=pany in the pending natter, ve are unhappy te find ourscives in a situation where our responsibility to ancther client prevents us from J

l acceding to your request.

l Our first considerstion centered on whether we might be in pos-sessien of any informatica having any relction to the iasues in the Dis-trict Court action, which has been acquired by us in the course of any representation of the City. We were cware of none and an internal review of the =atter confirtad our belief that we were not in possession of any onm D D) n I Q JL n' g - -

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