Estate of Leonard, Ex Rel., Palmer v. Swift

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• describing a GAL as “ ‘acting as an officer of the court’ ” (emphasis omitted)
• indicating a third-party claim exists when “the third party is a direct and intended beneficiary of the lawyer’s services” (internal quotation marks omitted)
• noting the conservator generally intends the ward to be the beneficiary of the lawyer’s services because “a conservator has a statutory duty to protect the estate of a ward”
• refusing, where brief contained inaccurate reference to place in appendix where pertinent court orders could be found, to undertake an independent review of the record to locate the orders or to consider party’s claim of issue preclusion based on such orders
• “[T]he guardian ad litem advocates for the best interests of the ward, whereas an attorney advances the wishes of the ward.”
• further noting that the court can determine whether an attorney acted as the ward’s attorney or guardian ad litem on appeal based on the attorney’s conduct

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).