Jesse by Reinecke v. Danforth 169 Wis.2d 229, 485 N.W.2d 63 (1992) 23 doctors wanted to pool their resources to buy an MRI machine. They hired a lawyer named Flgyt who worked for a law firm named DeWitt. He helped them create a corporation, MRIGM. Later, a guy named Jesse sued two of the doctors (Danforth and Ullrich) for an issue unrelated to MRIGM. Jesse hired a lawyer named Farnsworth, who also worked for DeWitt. Farnsworth did a conflict of interest check, but didn't see Danforth and Ullrich as clients of the firm (only MRIGM was listed as a client). Danforth and Ullrich tried to disqualify Farnesworth, claiming that the firm had a conflict of interest. Danforth and Ullrich argued that since they owned part of MRIGM, and MRIGM was a client, that was a conflict of interest. They also argued that they were personal clients of DeWitt during the phase prior to incorporation. The Wisconsin Court found that there was no conflict of interest. The Wisconsin Court found that the Entity Rule holds that where a lawyer represents a corporation, the client is the corporation, not the corporation's constituents. See Rule 1.13. The Court found that where a person retains a lawyer for the purpose of organizing a business entity, and the lawyers involvement is directly related to that incorporation, and the entity is eventually incorporated, the Entity Rule applies retroactively such that the lawyer's pre-incorporation involvement with the person is deemed to be representation of the entity, not the person. Basically, if you help someone set up a corporation, you are and always have been the corporations' lawyer, even if you were working on the project before the corporation legally came into existence.