Hot-Potato Rule Law and Legal Definition
Hot potato rule refers to a principle that a lawyer may not unreasonably withdraw from representing a client. The rule gets its name from the classic formulation “a firm may not drop a client like a hot potato, especially if it is in order to keep happy a far more lucrative client.” The rationale behind this rule is that a firm owes a client a duty of undivided loyalty. [Picker International, Inc. v. Varian Associates, Inc., 670 F. Supp. 1363, 1365 (N.D. Ohio 1987)]
