Obligation on the law firm to advise the client to stop

Many of the issues we, and other lawyers, address for our clients entail unsettled law or areas where the risks range from pearl gray to charcoal grey without being illegal per se.  In an 11th Circuit opinion in 2021, in Reynolds v. Mintz, Levin, a disgruntled laboratory's bankruptcy trustee sued a prominent health law firm for legal malpractice because the firm did not affirmatively instruct the client to stop paying physicians processing and handling fees. When the client sought advice regarding a competitor's behavior in paying high fees, Mintz Levin offered several options including reporting the competitor to the government, while advising regarding the risk in doing so, given their own practice of paying such fees.  The lab went bankrupt, but was also sued for $25 million by a whistleblower for the payment of the handling fees. The court found that the law was unsettled at the time the law firm's advice was given; so there was no obligation on the law firm to advise the client to stop what it was doing. What this means for many of our clients seeking guidance is that there is often no settled law on point; and the business decision belongs to the client. Not us.  Unlike informed consent in medicine where there is often data regarding risk of complications, we often have zero data available and must rely only on our own judgment.  One of the values in using a health law focused firm like us is that our judgment comes from long-standing reviews of a wide variety of transactions.  That said, there is, still, often no clear answer.  Welcome to health care!