Cromley v. Board of Education
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
17 F.3d 1059 (1994)
After representing Cromley (plaintiff) for two years in a civil rights suit against the School Board (defendant), attorney Weiner joined the Scariano firm, which continued representing the School Board in that same litigation; Cromley moved to disqualify the entire Scariano firm, but the firm submitted affidavits showing it barred employees from discussing the case with Weiner, stored case files where he couldn't access them, and excluded him from any fees generated by the litigation, and the district court denied disqualification.
Whether an attorney's representation of a client in matters adversarial to a former client may give rise to a rebuttable presumption that the attorney will use the former client's confidential information against that client.