Will the Real Intended Third-Party Please Stand Up?

This article addresses three legal doctrines that have been found to provide non-clients with standing to sue an attorney: the third-party beneficiary rule (outside the context of wills, estates, and trusts), the implications of opinion letters, and the potential exposures that lawyers face to non-clients for fraud, and aiding and abetting the alleged wrongful conduct of their clients. The traditional "privity" requirement governing standing to sue a lawyer is eroding, even outside the estate-planning context. In its place, courts are developing a sliding-scale standard, depending upon the perceived severity of the lawyer's misconduct, for determining whether a non-client has standing to sue a lawyer. Courts have recognized that the imposition of a duty on lawyers toward non-clients may threaten the integrity of a lawyer's advice to his or her client under certain circumstances.