Legal Question in Criminal Law in Michigan

Re: PA has her own law firm?

It is unclear from your question how there is a conflict of interest between the prosecutor's duty to administer justice fairly and evenhandedly simply because the PA or an assistant keeps some kind of unspecified private practice.

Public prosecutors are not barred from practicing civil law. But the cases (and clients and opposing parties) could create a conflict of interest if, for example, a criminal charge concerning a civil client/opponent came across the PA's desk.

In Michigan's larger counties, where there are dozens of lawyers in the PA's office, there are generally local office policies in place that bar or restrict "moonlighting" with private practice. You can see how one low-level Wayne County APA's outside civil case could force the entire office to be disqualified from a criminal case in that jurisdiction, or force a case to be re-assigned and to keep that one attorney insulated away from all case information. Conflicts of interest would be too easy to occur to make it worthwhile to the PA to allow his/her employees to moonlight ... and an inconvenience to some other county PA who might get appointed to handle the case instead as a "special prosecutor".

Many cities, townships and villages prosecute local ordinance violations through private law firms hired to serve as the city/village/twp attorney. Those attorneys maintain both civil work and the municipal prosecution work.

Another reality is that many of Michigan's smaller population county prosecuting attorneys work part-time because the criminal caseload (and salaries) do not support full-time work.

Regardless, it is incumbent upon the attorney to ensure that no conflict of interest exists for either the municipal or private clients. If a conflict exists, the attorney must step aside from one or both cases.

If you see a possible conflict of interest in a particular case, talk to your lawyer, or to the prosecuting attorney ... or, as a last resort, to the judge assigned to the case (when the prosecuting attorney is also present), to see if a real conflict of interest exists.