What are the obligations of an attorney who is employed by an insurer to represent an insured?

In accepting employment to render legal services, an attorney impliedly agrees to use such skill, prudence, and diligence as lawyers of ordinary skill and capacity commonly possess, and he is subject to liability for damage resulting from failure so to perform. (Lucas v. Hamm, 56 Cal.2d 583, 591, 15 Cal.Rptr. 821, 364 P.2d 685.) Furthermore, it is an attorney's duty to "protect his client in every possible way," and it is a violation of that duty for the attorney to "assume a position adverse or antagonistic to his client without the latter's free and intelligent consent given after full knowledge of all the facts and circumstances." The attorney is "precluded

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These traditional obligations of an attorney are in no way abridged by the fact that an insurer employs him to represent an insured. Typically, in such a situation, the attorney in effect has two clients, to each of whom is owed a "high duty of care." To the insured, the attorney owes "the same obligations of good faith and fidelity as if he had retained the attorney personally." (Lysick v. Walcom, 258 Cal.App.2d 136, 146, 65 Cal.Rptr. 406.)