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Limitations on Services

Penn State University

Limitations on Services

We'd love to help everyone all the time, but we have to follow the ethics rules that are established by our profession. Generally, our ethics rules say that we can't represent someone if:

  1. We believe we can't fully advocate on behalf of an individual for any reason, or
  2. Our involvement in the case might hurt the interests of a client or former client, either because we're now taking a similar matter against them, or because we could use confidential information we received in the prior representation.

Conflicts of Interest

A conflict of interest occurs there are two different parties whose interests are adverse and we have a relationship with both parties.

When we analyze conflicts, we have to treat all students who qualify for our services the same. That means that if we can't advise or represent all of the students involved in a given dispute under our ethics rules, we can only provide referral information to all of them.

We can't change it by assigning a different Student Legal Services attorney to each of two students in a dispute. If one attorney from our office has a conflict of interest, we all have a conflict of interest.

We also have a conflict if the University is a party with interests adverse to those of the student contacting us.

Only about 3 percent of our intakes are identified as conflicts of interest, but the conflict determination can mean that the individual student loses 100 percent of their options for free legal representation. For this reason, we make conflicts determinations carefully, while also working to develop alternative resources for students in conflicts situations.

Capability

We can only help with matters for which we're qualified to give advice, or for which we have enough knowledge and information to provide competent advice.

We are not qualified to give advice or represent students in matters outside of Pennsylvania. All of the Student Legal Services attorneys are only licensed to practice in Pennsylvania. We do not provide representation outside of Centre County.

There are areas of the law that require special qualifications, or in which we have no experience, or which were set out as areas in which we are not permitted to practice when Student Legal Services was formed. These include, but are not limited to:

Capacity

We are required to be available to the largest possible number of students and are not able to take a case that will disproportionately use our time for a single student, at the expense of many others. This sometimes means we won't take entire categories of cases--such as felony criminal charges, medical malpractice, and personal injury cases. Sometimes it means we'll take certain cases, but only on a limited basis, such as divorce cases so long as they are uncontested, but not if they become contested; or first-offense misdemeanors through the ARD process, but not if ARD is revoked.

Common Types of Conflicts of Interest

Cases against the University or its employees, acting in their professional capacity

It is easy to understand that we can't sue the University. This proscription is more broad than that though. For example, we will only provide referral information in:

  • A student's dispute against a professor
  • A student's employment dispute against the University
  • A criminal action where the student is alleged to have damaged University property

On the other hand, if the other party works for the University, but the action is unrelated to their professional role, we typically can help. So if a student has an issue with the landlord, and the landlord works for the University, Student Legal Services can usually still help that student because the issue is entirely with the landlord acting in a private capacity, not in the scope of his or her employment with the University.

Most cases against other students

With so many students living so close together -- much of the conflict that occurs here is between students. We've worked hard to try to develop resources for students in this situation to have access to a free or affordable consultation with a private attorney.

We have to be equally available to all students, and we can't pick which student to help based on who is 'right' and who is 'wrong' or who is the alleged perpetrator and who is the alleged victim. All students deserve the same right to representation, and often that means we can't help either student.

Common student-student conflict situations include:

  • roommate conflict
  • theft of another student's property
  • fights between students
  • car accidents where both drivers are students
  • one student defaults on a joint and several lease where another student is also a tenant

Professional conflicts can occur even when it may not seem like there is any actual conflict between the students. Here are a couple of examples:

  • Furnishing/underage charges. We often get two students who are close friends where one was charged with furnishing, and the other with underage possession. This presents a conflict for us, even though the friends both want us to help them both. To give complete advice, we'd have to advise one student of an option that could hurt the interests of the other student. Even if both students agree they don't want to take any action that would harm the other, our ethics rules don't allow us to take that friendship into account -- our zealous representation of one student could harm the interests of the other. We can only provide them with referral information.
  • Drafting a sublease agreement. One student wants to sublease an apartment from another. Both students want us to help draft a sublease contract. The students may have the same goal, but when they are on opposite sides of a contract, their legal interests are different. We can only provide them with referral information.

Cases where another student is involved in an adversarial way

Conflicts of interest often extend to situations where another student is involved in an adverse capacity to another student, even it they are not directly involved in the charge, lawsuit, or conflict. The most common example of this is where a student receives a charge related to a fight. Often the fight was witnessed by other students. We couldn't represent the student who received the criminal charge because we could not cross-examine the students who were witnesses to the fight.

We run a conflicts check on every intake. If we identify a conflict, we'll do our best to get referral information to the affected student. We typically send it by email so we don't waste the student's time by making that student come in to an appointment to get the referral list.

Sometimes we aren't able to spot a conflict until the initial meeting. If that happens, we'll provide referral information when the conflict is identified.

Unfortunately, no. We are subject to strict rules about attorney client privilege, and sometimes those rules prohibit us from explaining the reason for the conflict.

Yes, students are welcome to schedule an appointment after a conflict or limitation on service is identified if they have questions, or if they want to provide additional information they think would prove helpful in our analysis of the conflict determination. A meeting can be useful if there are follow up questions regarding the referral information provided.

Often a meeting is not helpful to a student after a conflict or limitation on service decision is made because:

  1. The attorney is not permitted to provide legal advice -- student often ask for 'information' or 'help' with the matter. We can't disguise legal advice as something else just by changing what we call it. If the student needs an attorney to be able to get the questions answered, the answers are likely legal advice.
  2. We won't debate or negotiate the conflict decision. It is critical that we all retain our law licenses to be able to continue to provide this service.

Students are entitled to use our services to get help for their personal legal issues; however, students do not have the right to decide whether we provide referrals, advice or representation in any given case. The Student Legal Services office can't exist unless the attorneys make that decision.

We only assist students with their personal legal issues. We don't help students with their friend's legal issue or their family member's legal issue. We don't assist students as business owners. The entrepreneurship ecosystem at the University provides free legal assistance and other services for students who are launching businesses.

 

Our events and programs are open to all students regardless of sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, or any other protected class. Student Affairs is committed to building a community of belonging for all.