NEW YORK, (Reuters)— A federal judge on Tuesday rejected Bank ofAmerica Corp's request to disqualify the law firm representinginsurer American International Group Inc in its $10 billionmortgage fraud lawsuit against the bank over an alleged conflict ofinterest by one of the firm's partners.

U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Jones ruled that the partner'sminimal involvement in the case and AIG's established relationshipwith Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan weighed against removingthe law firm from the case.

Bank of America asked the judge in October to disqualify the lawfirm because its partner, Marc Becker, previously defended MerrillLynch & Co and its First Franklin Financial Corp unit againstsimilar charges of mortgage fraud. Merrill Lynch and First Franklinare now both subsidiaries of Bank of America and defendants in thecase.

Becker was a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson, whichrepresents Bank of America, before he moved to Quinn Emanuel in2008.

Although Quinn Emanuel removed Becker from the case after thebank's objection, Bank of America's lawyers argued that Becker'sinvolvement broke ethical rules by placing Becker in a position touse his former clients' confidential information. But the judgedisagreed.

Although Becker performed 5.8 hours of work for AIG on the caseafter his move, Quinn Emanuel promptly separated him from the casewithin 24 hours of discovering the conflict, the judge found.

“Screens erected immediately upon discovery of the conflictweigh against disqualification,” Jones wrote. Becker's minimal workon the case and his physical distance from it in firm's Londonoffice made any disclosure of confidential client informationunlikely, she added. The size of Quinn Emanuel, with more than 500attorneys, reduced that risk further, she wrote.

“There is no meaningful showing that the trial process here willbe tainted,” Jones ruled. Given AIG's “significant” relationshipwith Quinn Emanuel and the cost of finding new counsel, she refusedto disqualify the firm.

Marc Dworsky, a lawyer for Bank of America at Munger, Tolles& Olson, did not immediately respond to a request forcomment.

Quinn Emanuel's other cases include most of the 18 FederalHousing Finance Agency lawsuits against Bank of America, otherbanks and at least 131 individuals to recover losses on $200billion of soured mortgage debt held by Fannie Mae and FreddieMac.

The case is American International Group Inc v. Bank of AmericaCorp et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No.11-06212.