THE DUTY TO SELF-REPORT MALPRACTICE TO THE CLIENT 6 Cal. 3d 176, 491 P.2d 421, 98 Cal. Rptr. 837 (1971) where the court stated: Finally, the dealings between practitioner and client frame a fiduciary relationship. The duty of a fiduciary embraces the obligation to render a full and fair disclosure to the ben-eficiary of all facts which materially affect his rights and interests. . . .Thus the fact that a client lacks awareness of a practitioner’s mal-practice implies, in many cases, a second breach of duty by the fiduciary, namely, a failure to disclose material facts to his client. Postponement of accrual of the cause of action until the client discovers, or should discover, the material facts in issue vindicate the fiduciary duty of full disclosure; it pre-vents the fiduciary from obtaining immunity for an initial breach of duty by a subsequent breach of the obligation of disclosure. Similarly, another court observed, in deciding whether the statute of limitations for filing a mal-practice claim against a law firm was tolled for nondisclosure: We are persuaded that the general rule, as distinguished from the discovery rule, may not be strictly applied in favor of an attorney, however, because, in addition to his position of trust and confidence with respect to his client, he also has a legally imposed duty to disclose facts material to his representation. Rice v. Forestier , 415 S.W.2d 711 (Tex. Civ. App. – San Antonio 1967, writ ref ’d n.r.e.). This duty, and the effect of its breach, was not considered by the respective courts of civil appeals in Pack and Crawford. We con-clude that the relationship creates the duty, and breach of the duty is tantamount to con-reason of a confidential relationship when that relationship is terminated the duty to inform is also terminated; concealment then ceases to exist. After the relationship of physi-cian and patient is terminated, the patient has full opportunity for discovery and no longer is there a reliance by the patient nor a corresponding duty of the physician to advise or inform. The statute of limitations is no longer tolled by any fraudulent concealment and begins to run.” Guy v. Schuldt , 236 Ind. 101, 138 N.E.2d 891, 895 (1956). It is clear that by “fraudulent concealment” the Indiana Court meant silence or breach of a duty to disclose rather than any other affirmative act of concealment. We believe this rule appro-priate as well to the attorney-client relation-ship. McClung v. Johnson , 620 S.W.2d 644 (Tex. App. Ct.1981). Other authorities have likewise held that a lawyer has a duty to reveal his or her mal-practice to the client. 7 For example, in N.Y. State Bar Ass’n, Ethics Op. 734 (2000), the ethics com-mittee concluded that because lawyers have an obligation to keep their clients reasonably informed about a matter and to provide informa-tion that their clients need to make decisions relating to the representation, lawyers have an obligation to a client to disclose the possibility that they have made a significant error or omis-sion. Moreover, with or without disclosure to the client, doesn’t the law firm have a conflict of interest continuing to represent the client in liti-gation while at the same time the client has a potential malpractice claim against the firm? See, e.g., N.Y. City Bar Ass’n, Formal Op. 1995-2 (1995)(Where client has a possible malpractice claim against a legal services organization, the organization must withdraw from the representa-tion, advise the client to get new counsel, and assist the client in obtaining new counsel.). Virginia Rule 1.7(a)(2) requires a lawyer to with-draw from representation if there is a significant risk that the representation will be “materially limited” by the lawyer’s own personal interests; or obtain the informed consent of the affected client. Again, this would necessitate disclosure of the lawyer’s error and potential malpractice claim to the client. However, this type of conflict should not be curable with consent. Comment [19] to Rule 1.7 explains that “when a disinterested lawyer would conclude that the client should not agree to the representation under the circum-stances, the lawyer involved cannot properly ask www.vsb.org “ 22 Aside from the duties set out in the Rules of Professional Conduct, the fiduciary duties of loyalty, candor, and communi-cation require that the lawyer disclose his or her malpractice on the client’s matter. cealment. We, therefore, hold that the failure to disclose operates to toll the statute of limi-tations for so long as the duty exists, and that the duty to disclose ceases when the relation-ship giving rise to the duty ends. The Indiana Supreme Court expressed this rule in a case concerning the physician-patient relation-ship: “[W]here the duty to inform exists by VIRGINIA LAWYER | August 2014 | Vol. 63 | ETHICS