# How is it possible to be a client of an attorney and not pay an attorney?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 17, 2018, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585 "2018-04-17T16:07:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2018, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/1 "2018-04-17T16:07:37Z")
Hi,
I happened to hear on CNN’s Anderson Cooper show one expert commentator Anne Milgram ( former federal prosecutor)
say that it was possible to be a client of an attorney and not pay that attorney?
How does that work exactly?
I look forward to your feedback
---
### Author:  [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2018, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/2 "2018-04-17T16:13:22Z")
Lawyers do pro bono work. Their clients are entitled to all the protections of any other paying client, obviously.
Why on earth would it be otherwise?
To further punish the poor? Disenfranchise their legal status because the lawyers offered their services for free?
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### Author:  [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2018, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/3 "2018-04-17T16:20:33Z")
They’re separate issues. An attorney-client relationship can arise based on conduct, regardless of whether money was paid. That’s why the lawyers here so often add disclaimers when discussing a point of law.
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### Author:  [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2018, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/4 "2018-04-17T17:30:24Z")
It’s pretty easy. Sometimes lawyers simply work for free (“pro bono” work), typically this is for causes they believe in or as a simple favor for a friend, and the American Bar Association rules say that a lawyer should aspire to 50 hours of pro bono work per year. Lots of lawyers work on a contingency basis, where they only get paid if they win the case. Sometimes another person pays the bills for a client. For example, if your kid gets in trouble, you can hire a lawyer to represent the kid. You pay the money, but you’re not actually the client. Sometimes a business or group of defendants will pay one lawyer to represent all of them, so everyone but the one person paying would be a client of the lawyer. Sometimes a lawyer may accept barter instead of dollars, in which case the lawyer isn’t getting paid in money. Sometimes a lawyer may give someone advice that they really shouldn’t have, and accidentally create a lawyer-client relationship even though no money changed hands and there was no formal agreement.
Note that all of the cases where someone else is paying the bill can get ethically complicated very easily.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2018, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/5 "2018-04-17T17:47:14Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#):
>
> They’re separate issues. An attorney-client relationship can arise based on conduct, regardless of whether money was paid. That’s why the lawyers here so often add disclaimers when discussing a point of law.
And that’s also why I don’t comment on the real-life legal questions posed in IMHO, other than to say they should talk to a lawyer.
I’m comfortable discussing legal issues in the abstract, because one of the duties of a lawyer is to help members of the public understand the law and the legal system. But as soon as someone posts: “I have a legal problem…” I’m silent. I don’t want to take any chance on inadvertently entering into a lawyer-client relationship with some other poster.
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### Author:  [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2018, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/6 "2018-04-17T18:32:21Z")
> [@Pantastic](#):
>
> It’s pretty easy. Sometimes lawyers simply work for free (“pro bono” work), typically this is for causes they believe in or as a simple favor for a friend, and the American Bar Association rules say that a lawyer should aspire to 50 hours of pro bono work per year. Lots of lawyers work on a contingency basis, where they only get paid if they win the case. Sometimes another person pays the bills for a client. For example, if your kid gets in trouble, you can hire a lawyer to represent the kid. You pay the money, but you’re not actually the client. Sometimes a business or group of defendants will pay one lawyer to represent all of them, so everyone but the one person paying would be a client of the lawyer. Sometimes a lawyer may accept barter instead of dollars, in which case the lawyer isn’t getting paid in money. Sometimes a lawyer may give someone advice that they really shouldn’t have, and accidentally create a lawyer-client relationship even though no money changed hands and there was no formal agreement.
>
> Note that all of the cases where someone else is paying the bill can get ethically complicated very easily.
And sometimes clients skip it on the bill. And sometimes they pay for a defined scope of work, but there is scope creep.
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### Author:  [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2018, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/7 "2018-04-17T19:30:58Z")
I assume it also avoids the gotcha of “Your honor, the defendant has not yet paid his legal bill, and we’ve seized his bank accounts so he cant, so therefore his lawyer has no privilege.”
You become a client to a lawyer when you start acting like a client and/or (s)he starts acting like your lawyer, and from then on all such client-like interactions are then privileged. Like most interactions, money is not a requirement, just a convenient way to keep score.
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2018, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/8 "2018-04-18T03:16:35Z")
In America and UK (and many other countries) when someone is accused of a crime they are entitled to free legal representation. The lawyer works for the accused, but is paid by the state. The accused is thus the lawyer’s client, but doesn’t pay him.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2018, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/9 "2018-04-18T04:29:53Z")
Even aside from normal pro bono work, an attorney might simply not charge someone for preliminary work in the hope that it will become an ongoing relationship. I’ve had conversations with attorneys that I did pay for, but without a retainer and no explicit goals in mind. If the attorney was a friend or he thought I was a lucrative enough client that I was worth a freebie, I could see him not charging for those initial conversations. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t my attorney with respect to the law.
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### Author:  [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2018, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/10 "2018-04-18T09:41:57Z")
> [@davidmich](#):
>
> Hi,
> say that it was possible to be a client of an attorney and not pay that attorney?
> How does that work exactly?
If you have access to a telephone and a phone directory, start calling lawyer’s offices and ask if the lawyer will take your case for free, otherwise start knocking on lawyers’ doors.
You’ll have a better chance of getting a lawyer if the lawyer gets paid or partially paid by someone, so search about for funding organizations if you need a lawyer but are unable to pay the lawyer yourself. Often welfare offices and libraries will have information on such funding organizations.
Both individual lawyers and funding organizations have limited resources, so usually people who have the greatest need have a better chance (e.g. a handicapped single parent with three young children needing a restraining order against a violent ex-boyfriend will be much more likely to get a free lawyer than a healthy sovereign citizen wanting to sue the Sheriff for being evicted under court order).
A word to the wise. Arriving at a lawyer’s door offering a chicken for payment probably will not help. Just sayin’ . . . .
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### Author:  [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2018, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/11 "2018-04-18T11:46:58Z")
I wonder how many are working “pro malo”. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2018, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/12 "2018-04-18T12:25:13Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#):
>
> I wonder how many are working “pro malo”. 🙂
I know of one who did.
> [@why would a LEO carry a gun on vacation?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-leo-carry-a-gun-on-vacation/596311/12):
>
> Imagine that you are sitting in bail court, just watching the show. A madam is trying to bail out one of her girls. She complains that her girls had a service-for-service deal with a certain defence counsel, such that in exchange for their services, he would represent them as necessary. The Justice of the Peace found the assertion rather doubtful, so the madam pulled a toupee out of her purse and said that the defence counsel had mistakenly forgotten it when visiting the girls that previous weekend. It was at that moment that the defence counsel in question walked into the courtroom, bald as a bee.
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### Author:  [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2018, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/13 "2018-04-19T12:07:14Z")
> [@Muffin](#):
>
> I know of one who did.
But a attorney-client relationship, whether it be pro-bono or transactional (if that is the correct word) does depend on an actual agreement in writing doesn’t it?
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2018, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/14 "2018-04-19T12:46:32Z")
> [@davidmich](#):
>
> But a attorney-client relationship, whether it be pro-bono or transactional (if that is the correct word) does depend on an actual agreement in writing doesn’t it?
No. It’s the action of a person asking the lawyer for advice on a legal issue, and the lawyer giving that legal advice, which can create the lawyer-client relationship.
For instance, in my jurisdiction there is “duty counsel” in the court for first appearances. That is, publicly funded counsel whose job is to give legal advice on the spot for individuals who have been arrested and brought to court on charges. Those individuals need immediate advice about the court processes and the nature of the charges, whether they can seek bail, and so on. The duty counsel provides that legal advice, perhaps to a series of different people all day. There’s no time for a formal written agreement, but there’s certainly a lawyer-client relationship in each case: what the individual said to the duty counsel, and the duty counsel’s advice to the individual, is all covered by privilege.
Same thing for calls at night when someone’s picked up for impaired driving. When they’re taken to the police station, they have a right to call a lawyer. They may have a lawyer already, but more likely they’ll just call someone from the list of local lawyers who handle impaired driving cases, from the yellow pages or provided by the police. When they reach the lawyer by phone and talk to them, there’s a lawyer-client relationship and the conversation is privileged, even though there’s no written agreement.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2018, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/15 "2018-04-19T12:50:51Z")
> [@why would a LEO carry a gun on vacation?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-a-leo-carry-a-gun-on-vacation/596311/12):
>
> Imagine that you are sitting in bail court, just watching the show. A madam is trying to bail out one of her girls. She complains that her girls had a service-for-service deal with a certain defence counsel, such that in exchange for their services, he would represent them as necessary. The Justice of the Peace found the assertion rather doubtful, so the madam pulled a toupee out of her purse and said that the defence counsel had mistakenly forgotten it when visiting the girls that previous weekend. It was at that moment that the defence counsel in question walked into the courtroom, bald as a bee. Moral of the story: always keep a spare toupee handy if you are into hookers. I suppose the same could be said for LAOs: always keep a spare handgun handy if you live in the USA.
Thunder Bay sounds like it is a very interesting place to practise law. :eek:
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### Author:  [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2018, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/16 "2018-04-19T13:58:02Z")
> [@davidmich](#):
>
> But a attorney-client relationship, whether it be pro-bono or transactional (if that is the correct word) does depend on an actual agreement in writing doesn’t it?
Absolutely positively not. A written agreement doesn’t mean that there is a valid attorney-client relationship (a written agreement for a lawyer to be implicit in a crime would not create one, for example). And an attorney-client relationship can happen without any agreement, because all that is required is that an attorney gives legal advice (possibly without meaning to) and the client relies on it.
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### Author:  [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2018, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/17 "2018-04-19T14:37:25Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> Thunder Bay sounds like it is a very interesting place to practise law. :eek:
He was such a creepy guy that when his car went off the road in a blizzard when travelling back from a satellite court, no one else offered him a ride back to town.
He preached at various churches on Sundays, and of course he had a wife and kids.
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### Author:  [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2018, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/18 "2018-04-19T22:16:19Z")
> [@Muffin](#):
>
> He was such a creepy guy that when his car went off the road in a blizzard when travelling back from a satellite court, no one else offered him a ride back to town.
>
> He preached at various churches on Sundays, and of course he had a wife and kids.
Then this commentator must be wrong
Listen to him say 3 minutes 10-13seconds into the video
“The attorney-client relationship requires a formal relationship reduced to writjng for a specific legal purpose”. (Judge Andrew Napolitano Fox legal analyst)
Fox Legal Analyst says he ‘Loves’ Hannity – then WRECKS his Argument
in Cohen Case
[![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX0EvJm2Gb0)
---
### Author:  [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2018, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/19 "2018-04-19T23:16:02Z")
[quote=“davidmich, post:18, topic:812585”]
Then this commentator must be wrong
Listen to him say 3 minutes 10-13seconds into the video
“The attorney-client relationship requires a formal relationship reduced to writjng for a specific legal purpose”. (Judge Andrew Napolitano Fox legal analyst)
Fox Legal Analyst says he ‘Loves’ Hannity – then WRECKS his Argument
in Cohen Case
[/QUOTE]
Just to show that this isn’t just a Fox legal theory, I saw an attorney (a woman, so I’m sure it wasn’t Napolitano) say on MSNBC that in New York the attorney-client relationship doesn’t apply unless there is an engagement letter that has been agreed to by both sides. I thought this was quite surprising. I can’t call an attorney in the middle of the night saying “I committed a crime and the police are knocking at my door. What should I do?” I have to sit down with him and sign a letter first?
I’m sorry I’ve been looking for a clip or a reference, but I can’t find one.
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### Author:  [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2018, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-to-be-a-client-of-an-attorney-and-not-pay-an-attorney/812585/20 "2018-04-20T03:12:27Z")
My take on the NY law is that the written retainer confirms the lawyer-client relationship. Note that that does not preclude the lawyer-client relationship from existing prior to it being documented in the retainer agreement. [Letters of Engagement Are Now Mandatory | New York Legal Ethics Reporter | New York Legal Ethics](http://www.newyorklegalethics.com/letters-of-engagement-are-now-mandatory/)
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