PO-PO, conflict or interest lawyering? [MP]

Melrose Park Herald (John Huston) has an article discussing whether the Village of Melrose Park hiring an attorney for its police officers constitutes a conflict of interest.

If the supervisors at the village are paying for the lawyer, is he going to be representing the interests of the individual officers, the group of officers or the village?

The short answer is probably, if nobody did anything wrong there won't be a conflict of interest. However, if crimes were committed and some players will be cutting deals to testify against others then it seems likely conflicts of interest will occur.

The article does say:

"At this point, it does not appear that any police officers I represent are targets or suspects," Onesto said. "At this point I can tell you that. If it arises that they become suspects, then we will have to discuss the possibility of conflicts."

He also said the officers who were issued subpoenas were not directed to take his counsel.