Engaged Lawyers Face Discipline for Sharing Client Secrets

The Ohio Supreme Court will soon decide a case that might chill dinner table conversations in two-lawyer households.

The case, which several ethics experts described as novel, is a consolidated discipline proceeding against two soon-to-wed attorneys who have admitted that they violated confidentiality by exchanging information about their respective clients.

A June 11 report from the Ohio Board of Professional Conduct doesn’t include many details about the respondents. But the bar complaint that initiated the case says they are an engaged couple who began sharing client confidences after they started dating.

“I have never seen anything like this before,” said ...