As part of the news about the Zimmerman lawyers resigning, there’s this nugget:
George Zimmerman’s attorneys quit; announcement in case imminent
Is that common in the US, for lawyers in a major criminal case to never meet with their client face-to-face?
Very uncommon, but they were never his defense attorneys since—and you may have heard something about this on the news—he has not been charged with any crime. They were simply assisting him, in some sense, in dealing with various legal, financial, and publicity issues.
If he’s out of state and they’re representing him in Florida, I could see that, but you’d better stay in touch via phone/text/email. I have a friend who conducted his divorce out-of-state without meeting his attorney face-to-face. Of course that’s just a civil matter, not criminal.
I think the larger problem was Z’s not returning calls, setting up web sites, calling TV talk show hosts (!) and the State Attorney (!!) without advice of council.
You don’t have to be charged to trigger an attorney-client relationship. If they were acting for him, even in hopes of avoiding any charges, they’re still his lawyers.
What I don’t really understand is the ethics of calling the news conference.
I thought lawyers had a duty of confidentiality. Can they really discuss with the press whether their client was communicating with them and disclose that he was talking to the prosecutor and so on? I understand issuing a statement “We are no longer representing Mr. Zimmerman” but talking about their relationship with him?
It’s not unknown for English Barrister not to to have met or even had a communication with the lay client, but then you have solicitors in between.
Can’t confidentiality be waived? Perhaps their client had delegated some PR authority to them, and whatever statements they are making to the press now are covered by this agreement. They may have lost contact with him, which is a valid reason as any to drop him as their client, but not to assume that he’s revoked their permission to publically disclose certain aspects of his case.
Another thing to bear in mind is that Zimmerman has been receiving threats of violence and death, so I imagine he’s ‘holed up’ somewhere and doesn’t want to be seen walking around town a lot. Since I’m sure paying a lawyer to come to your house is more expensive, it makes sense everything would be through calls, emails, etc…
Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School was calling them out on exactly this point last night on CNN. He said that at most, they should have simply announced that they were no longer acting for him. Two points that Dershowitz made were: 1. Commenting on his mental state, speculating about traumatic stress disorder, and so on, could be the basis for a potential defence and they should not have been discussing it in public. 2. The fact that he apparently declined to take their advice in contacting the prosecutor’s office on his own should be covered by privilege, since they were publicly revealing the advice they had given him.
They’ve said in the past that they’re acting pro bono (i.e. not charging a fee).