Attorney disqualified in FDCPA litigation

A recent Michigan federal decision disqualified a plaintiff’s attorney in an FDCPA case based on conflicts arising from her prior defense-side work for affiliated collection agencies under a common “unified litigation” structure.

Key recent case

• Case: Boyd v. H & R Accounts, Inc., E.D. Mich., decision reported May 5, 2026.

• Facts: The plaintiff’s lawyer had spent years defending FDCPA cases for multiple collection agencies owned by Meduit Group or its affiliates, then switched to representing consumers and took on a case against H & R Accounts, Inc., a Meduit-owned collector.

• Court’s reasoning:

  • The attorney had access to confidential information about how the prior client entities “collected debts, developed policies and procedures, and generally approached consumer litigation.”

  • The court found that this information was “necessarily shared” across Meduit’s subsidiaries, which operated with a “unified litigation” approach, so the interests of H&R and the prior clients were closely aligned.

  • Even though the attorney never represented H&R or Meduit directly, the long history of work for affiliated entities created a conflict sufficient to require disqualification.

• Tone of decision: The judge expressly noted there was no indication the attorney had misused confidential information and acknowledged her reputation, but still concluded that no amount of careful lawyering could cure the conflict concerns under the applicable ethics rules.

Practical takeaways for FDCPA matters

• Courts may treat collection agencies under a common parent or “unified” platform as having sufficiently aligned interests that conflicts can extend across affiliated entities, even without direct past representation of the exact defendant.

• For plaintiff-side FDCPA lawyers who previously did significant defense work:

  • You should inventory prior collection-agency clients and their corporate families (mergers, acquisitions, consolidations) before accepting consumer cases.

  • Pay special attention where prior representation involved strategy, procedures, or litigation playbooks that might reasonably be shared within a holding company’s platform.

• For defense counsel:

  • Motions to disqualify may succeed where you can demonstrate: (1) substantial prior, related representation; (2) access to confidential operational or litigation information; and (3) corporate affiliation plus shared systems or “unified” litigation practices between the old client and the current defendant.