In this lesson, we’ll discuss imputed conflicts of interest. We’ll learn what imputed conflicts are, how they apply to a lawyer’s current and former law firms, and how they can sometimes be waived by the client.

Let’s begin with a lawyer’s current firm. The general rule for imputed conflicts says that no lawyer in a firm may knowingly represent a client if any one of them alone would be disqualified because of a conflict of interest. In other words, if one lawyer has a conflict of interest,...