E. L. Cord, Etc. v. Calvin J. Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

70 federal appellate · 5 district · 11 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 121 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “When an attorney appears before a federal court, he is acting as an officer of that court, and it is that court which must judge his conduct.”

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Matthews v. Pacific & Southwest Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church (In Re Pacific Homes) · 365 F. Supp. 3d 1129 - Quatama Park Townhomes Owners Ass'n v. RBC Real Estate Fin., Inc.

2. ““In our opinion, the rule that an attorney who has represented one party in a transaction may not thereafter represent the other party in an action against his former client, arising out of or closely relating to the transaction, does not depend for its operation upon a subsidiary decision as to whether the attorney would or might be using or misusing confidential information derived from his former client, (footnote omitted) We think that the famous words of Judge Cardozo in Meinhard v. Salmon, 1928, 249 N.Y. 458, 464 , 164 N.E. 545, 546 , 62 “A.L.R. 1, in which he was defining the duties of a trustee, are equally applicable to an attorney-at-law in relation to his conduct in the federal courts: ‘Many forms of conduct permissible in a workaday world for those acting at arm’s length, are forbidden to those bound by fiduciary ties. A trustee is held to something stricter than the morals of the market place. Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior. As to this there has developed a tradition that is unbending and inveterate. Uncompromising rigidity has been the attitude of courts of equity when petitioned to undermine the rule of undivided loyalty by the “disintegrating erosion” of particular exceptions. * * * Only thus has the level of conduct for fiduciaries been kept at a level higher than that trodden by the crowd’.” Cord v. Smith, supra, 338 F.2d at 524-525 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. In Re a Member of the State Bar of Arizona, Evans

3. “. .. The Canons that require that a lawyer who has represented a client in a transaction may not thereafter represent the other party to the transaction, in an action against his client based upon the transaction, are not to be so readily avoided. (United States v. Trafficante, 5 Cir., 1964, 328 F.2d 117 ) We think that the courts are not only entitled, but required, to hold the lawyer to his sworn allegations, made at a time when it was to his interest to claim that his actions for his client were done by him in his capacity of attorney for the client. It does not make any difference that the particular transaction is one which could have been handled on the client’s behalf by a layman, i.e., one in which his activity is not necessarily the practice of law. Lawyers customarily render both legal and non-legal services, without distinction, and bill their clients for those services on the basis that all of them are legal services. Clients repose special confidence in, and retain their lawyers because they are lawyers. They are entitled to expect that their lawyers will act as they are supposed to act, without quibble as to what particular services may have been technically legal services. (See In re Soale, 1916, 31 Cal.App. 144, 153 , 159 P. 1065, 1069 )”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Hadar Leasing International Co. v. D.H. Overmyer Telecasting Co. (In Re D.H. Overmyer Telecasting Co.)