The American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct may help lawyers seeking to leave clients, according to Stanford Law School professor Nora Freeman Engstrom.

“A lawyer can’t just drop a client like a hot potato. But a lawyer is entitled to terminate representation in certain instances,” she said. “The [ABA] rules compel lawyers to withdraw from any representation that involves ‘conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice.’ That’s a broad category, and, applied here, it gives lawyers a lot of leeway.”

She noted the ABA’s rules also authorize withdrawal if a client “insists upon taking action that the lawyer considers repugnant” or takes action with which the “lawyer has a fundamental disagreement,” and when other “good cause exists.”

“Applied here, those standards give U.S. lawyers who want to cut ties with Putin and his enablers plenty of room to do so,” Engstrom said.