I have a friend who is a lawyer and was court appointed to represent my brother in law. He is charged with a litany of felonies and he is abusive to my sister. We live in a small county and political favors are passed around liberally. I let my lawyer friend know that just because he is my brother in law I hoped that he wouldn’t try to get him a good deal with the attorney general thru any favors as I hoped he would be sent away for a long time. I told him how my brother in law was abusive and had also threatened my father. Well, apparently my “friend” lawyer told my brother in law that we had talked. The question is; was my lawyer friend obligated to tell my brother in law about our convo or could he have not said anything? thanks in advance for any help!
Reported for move to IMHO - the forum for legal advice
Reported for forum change.
He wasn’t your lawyer, this wasn’t about a case of yours, so (IANAL) i’m guessing no more obligated than Joe Citizen.
Plus, if he’s defending BiL, it’s in his best interest to understand the lay of the land… why does X not like Y and want him to get a long sentence, does BiL like X, etc. Especially, if you have any bearing on any of the cases (i.e. witness, character witness, etc.)?
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Welcome to the SDMB, va7299.
Even though this is a factual question, we prefer that legal questions go in our IMHO forum as real-life legal situations like this often lead to discussions involving legal opinions. As the forum name implies, any responses you receive are just the online opinions of some folks on the internet and should not be considered the equivalent of professional legal advice.
Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion.
ETA: Thread title also edited to better indicate the topic.
IANAL, but you’re not his client. He’s free to share any and all info with your BIL.
Now, if he tells you something the BIL told him, then you may have a case.
Not wanting a case or legal advice. just want to know if my friend hosed me and our friendship for his case.
I think you were naïve to think that your friends first interest is not his client. I have seen this in business countless times where a salesperson and a customer have become friends. In most cases either party will represent the best interests of their company before the friendship. I have always assumed this.
A good lawyer will put ethics before friendship. His obligation is to get his client the best deal he can, in spite of any relationships with a third party. As long as he is acting in your bil’s defense, his job is not to get his client “put away.”
IAAL. Attorneys are obligated to do everything (legally) within their power to represent their client.
Did you think he was gonna “take a dive” in this situation?
Based on your post, I don’t think he had an obligation to tell your brother-in-law, but there’s no way he was going to throw the case.
I would think that the lawyer would have to inform his client that someone tried to improperly influence the lawyer. The client can then make a decision about whether the lawyer can still act in the client’s best interests.
He probably was not obligated, per se, to tell his client that he talked to you, but he IS legally obligated to work on his client’s behalf, not yours. For example, if he tried to get your BiL, his own client, put away for longer as a favor to you, THAT would be a very serious ethics violation. (We’re talking disbarment territory here.)
His obligations to his client are ethically more important than his friendship with you, and what you told him may be important to his client’s case. For example, he may believe that he needed to know how the client would react to or rebut what you said about your BiL being abusive and threatening your father. How can he elicit that information without revealing that somebody told him about the abuse and the threats? Now, how many “somebodies” could have told him? It might not be a great leap to figure out it was you.
Or your BiL might have told his lawyer that you would be a character witness, in which case the lawyer has to tell him that no, you’re not going to be helpful. Why not, and how does the lawyer know? Well, because he already talked to you. There are many scenarios in which the information you provided may be relevant to his client’s case, and his ethical obligations are to put that information to use for his client.
That said, he also has ethical obligations not to put you in danger, and he may need to refrain from telling his client exactly who said what. The fact that somebody said something, though, may be enough for your BiL to figure out who and what.
If anyone hosed the friendship, it was you by asking your friend to act in a way not in the best interest of his client. You put him in an impossible situation and he chose to do the only ethical thing he could do.
What Telemark said. If this friendship is hosed, the OP has hosed it. There was an approach to the defendant’s lawyer requesting that he, the lawyer, not use his best endeavours in representing the defendant. That was an attempt to suborn the laywer (through emotional rather than financial pressure) and I don’t see how he wouldn’t tell his client about this, since it’s conceivably something his client might wish to put before the court.
And I don’t see how the OP wouldn’t realise this, if he thought about it. I think in his (understandable) animus towards the defendant he acted hastily, but if he thinks about it in the cold light of day he’ll realise the error was his, and not his friend’s.
What Telemark and UDS said.
The OP was using his friendship with the lawyer to put pressure on the lawyer not to exert his best efforts for his client. He was also telling the lawyer that there was family animus towards the lawyer’s client, aimed at preventing a full defence for the client.
I think the lawyer was under a duty to disclose that to his client, to warn him not to rely on his relatives for assistance, and maybe not even to talk to his relatives.
I’ll have to agree with slash2k. The attorney had no obligation except to disregard your suggestion that he provide your BIL with any less than the best representation he could. He would only have needed to share your feelings if your BIL had suggested that you would be a good character witness.
That said, your friend also committed no legal violations by sharing your thoughts on the matter.
So a lawyer who is friends with the family of the victim is hired to defend the accused perpetrator.
Would there be a conflict of interest here?
What Northern Piper and others have said.
I am surprised and somewhat saddened that somebody, not even connected to the case, could think that they could influence the lawyer acting for the defense. That’s not the way a justice system works.
I hope the lawyer who is representing the accused in the matter described by the OP does the best he or she can in defending. If successful, fine. If unsuccessful, that’s fine too. But to think that a party who is unconnected with the case at bar can share information with the defense lawyer, hope it is protected, and express shock when the defense lawyer shares it with his or her client–laughable.
Criminal lawyers’ ethics and privilege and confideniality extend to their clients. Not to third parties such as the OP, who want to “see the accused put away for a long time.”
Thanks for the replies. I would like to clarify that I in no way insinuated or implied that my friend “take a dive” or not do his best. I just did not want him to think he needed to curry any political favor because his client was my brother in law. I don’t think I stated that in my original post but I see that some of you may have assumed that was my intent.
Was your intention to say to your friend “Don’t think you have to go above and beyond in defense of my BIL because of me. Do what you would for any normal client.”
On the surface, that seems OK but it still puts the lawyer in a difficult situation. It’s hard to ascertain your motives and it could easily be seen as a request to do less than is humanly possible. A defense lawyer is supposed to put on a full defense for any client without doing anything illegal or unethical. Asking for favors is neither. Regardless, he is well within normal ethical standards to discuss any pertinent information with his client and you put yourself into that situation, not him.