Suits Season 1 Episode 7

Suits 1x7 - "Play the Man"

Violation of 8.4(c)
There's actually only one ethical violation in this whole episode, so let's get to it. Kyle, another associate at Pearson Hardman, promises Mike he will settle a mock trial case with him before they get to mock court. However, once they get to court, he tells the mock court that there never was a deal. Normally other rules regarding candor to the court would be in play, but since this is a mock trial, the only ethical rule in play is 8.4(c) which states that it is professional misconduct for a lawyer (here Kyle) to "(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation."By tricking Mike and lying to him about a settlement when Kyle did not plan on settling, Kyle has violated 8.4(c).

I'd like to also take a second look at another ethical issue in the episode which arguably does not lead to an ethical violation. Scottie, Harvey's female rival from Harvard, is in a merger agreement between the business she represents and the business Harvey represents. Scottie gets the financial books from Harvey's client, and uses that information to torpedo the merger and instead take over Harvey's client's business in a hostile takeover. First, we need to determine whether Harvey giving Scottie his client's financial records violated his duty of confidentiality under 1.6. Normally, "a lawyer shall not reveal information relating to the representation of a client", but they can when "the disclosure is impliedly authorized in order to carry out the representation." Here, Harvey is trying to merge his client's company and Scottie's client's company, and so showing the client's financial records is normally a part of these transactions. Therefore, Harvey was impliedly authorized to show Scottie the books because showing her the books was necessary to carry out the merger for his client. There is no violation of 1.6.

Second, and more importantly, Scottie misrepresents her interest in doing a merger in order to secure the financial records of Harvey's client. It could be argued that this misrepresentation is prohibited by 8.4(c), but because the word "misrepresentation" is not included in the terminology, we would have to rely on the word as used in substantive law, and normally in substantive law "misrepresentation" is only misrepresentation of a material fact. Here, Scottie's intentions in getting Harvey's books during the negotiations is probably not a material fact, and while outright lying or deception is still prohibited even in negotiations, this type of omission does not seem to rise to the level of misrepresentation required under the rules (again, feel free to disagree with me in the comments below!). This situation is different from the one in the first paragraph above, because in the paragraph above, Kyle is making affirmative statements that he knows are not true- he is making a promise he has no intention of keeping and that Mike relies on when they start the trial. Here, however, those affirmative statements are lacking, the only thing at issue here is that Scottie's intentions are not what they seem, and a lawyer can have different intentions than the ones they put on display during negotiations. Therefore, this omission does not seem to rise to the level of a misrepresentation and Scottie probably did not violate 8.4(c).