# Lawyer-client privilege and non-payment **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 15, 2011, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawyer-client-privilege-and-non-payment/574761 "2011-03-15T07:22:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2011, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawyer-client-privilege-and-non-payment/574761/21 "2011-03-17T21:23:52Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Adam has done everything right until the claim that failure to pay is an exception. Persoanlly, I would not ask for the money in this situation as it would be very tricky and dicey, but if the work was done in furtherance of an honest and reasonable belief that the woman had a case and the fee is for nothing more, then I say he has a claim, Is the implication that $15,000 for two days work is far more than his typical rate? I suppose there are $1,000/hour divorce lawyers around in Hollywood, but it’s not the kind of rate I would generally expect for non-multi-millionaire celebrities. If Adam is indeed jacking his prices way up and threatening to reveal what he knows unless she pays up, that seems not only unethical, but pretty clearly criminal (blackmail) to me. If that really is his going rate, there’s one less element, but still probably criminal blackmail. Especially as I think his threat is meaningless, as there no confidentiality to be broken anyway. There’s nothing privileged about a client’s actions in a public place where they could be observed any other member of the public, especially if the lawyer isn’t there with the client but just happens to notice and observe the client. If fact, if the husband’s team found out about this, and put Adam on the stand, he would have to (legally and ethically) say what he saw (which opens some other cans of ethical worms, but not the one that’s been discussed). ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2011, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawyer-client-privilege-and-non-payment/574761/22 "2011-03-18T04:22:40Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > I’ll describe the scenario in more detail: > > Adam takes on a woman’s divorce case. She’s wealthy and her husband signed a pre-nup with regards to not getting anything if he cheated. Their sex life was floundering and so they hired another woman to have threesomes with them to spice things up. It works, but the husband seems to like the woman a little too much so they stop hiring her. But apparently they fell in love and have been seeing each other on the sly. The husband’s lawyer is going to argue that this wasn’t cheating since the wife initiated it, even though she didn’t authorize the alone time and wasn’t aware of it. Later, Adam sees the wife eating lunch with the hired woman, and giving her some money. He figures out that she actually was conning her husband the whole time, hiring the woman to tempt him into cheating so that he wouldn’t get any money in the future divorce. Adam tells her he’s quitting her case, and he’s billing her $15k for the two days work. And that if she thinks that’s too steep, she should know that failure to pay is an exception to lawyer-client privilege. > > I can’t see this personally as anything other than extortion. And he’s considered the nice guy lawyer. Bearing in mind that this is a David E. Kelly show (Boston Legal, The Practice, Ally McBeal, etc) I have a feeling Adam was bluffing. If his client looked up the actual laws or statutes surrounding a lawyer breaking privilege she’d find the sections mentioned upthread and assume they applied to her. So I think he was playing on her ignorance of the law to take advantage of her predilection for handing out envelopes full of cash. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2011, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawyer-client-privilege-and-non-payment/574761/23 "2011-03-18T09:18:17Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Is the implication that $15,000 for two days work is far more than his typical rate? I suppose there are $1,000/hour divorce lawyers around in Hollywood, but it’s not the kind of rate I would generally expect for non-multi-millionaire celebrities. > > If Adam is indeed jacking his prices way up and threatening to reveal what he knows unless she pays up, that seems not only unethical, but pretty clearly criminal (blackmail) to me. If that really is his going rate, there’s one less element, but still probably criminal blackmail. > > Especially as I think his threat is meaningless, as there no confidentiality to be broken anyway. There’s nothing privileged about a client’s actions in a public place where they could be observed any other member of the public, especially if the lawyer isn’t there with the client but just happens to notice and observe the client. If fact, if the husband’s team found out about this, and put Adam on the stand, he would have to (legally and ethically) say what he saw (which opens some other cans of ethical worms, but not the one that’s been discussed). As long as the demand is for work actually done and or costs actually incurred in those two days, I would say that he would be able to make a claim for them. Whether or not that was his going rate or actual costs is a question of fact which would be decided during any proceedings and not relevant as to the maintainability of said claim. Things to consider, Firstly the fact that such a claim can be made, says nothing on to paraphrase Barack Obama, the wisdom of so making, indeed I would probably say in such circumstances, that I would not pursue it. Secondly, I would point out that the overheard conversation can certainly be privileged, it relates to the case. If I come across information about my clients case (say some evidence) independently of what I was told or even through third parties, the question that an ethics committee would look at is “is it related to my clients case and would it harm my clients to reveal it, and if yes, defiantly privileged.” The present example is not privileged however as it is to show that a fraud (criminal activity) is being committed. Finally, I would point out that independently of Professional Conduct rules, firms and chambers usually have internal rules and regulations which can be MUCH stricter. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawyer-client-privilege-and-non-payment/574761.md?page=1)