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r/legaladviceofftopic•
WorldWideWig

Question about The Lincoln Lawyer S2E1

I'm not in or from the US so this is baffling me.

Spoilers ahead so proceed with caution if you're not caught up.

Haller, the LL, is representing Client A, who is being reinvestigated for a murder he was previously convicted for and LL got that conviction overturned. Witnesses say a guy with kanji tattoos did it. LL is actively trying to get Client A off and to find Tattoo guy.

LL is asked to represent a new client for a B&E case. He does so and gets the guy a vastly reduced sentence. Case closed.

Later that evening, LL's driver mentions on the phone that the B&E client called and paid $5000 as a retainer with a credit card while she was in the office. LL is like "Huh, weird."

He goes home. B&E client is in his house. Surprise, he is also the Tattoo guy that LL has been looking for. He admits to the murder that LL's other client is accused of and makes some vague threats to LL and his family and then says that there is nothing that LL can do about it due to attorney-client privilege and if LL tries anything, Tattoo guy will have him disbarred.

I have some questions.

How is that still his client? Surely his contract with Tattoo guy ended when the B&E case finished. Surely a driver taking CC information/cash (I can't remember which) after hours cannot construe a formal contract with a lawyer.

What are the rules on attorney-client privilege regarding a confession to murder? Doesn't the attorney have the obligation to report that kind of confession ro a very serious crime?

Why would an attorney have to represent someone who broke into their home amd threatened their family and their livelihood?

Isn't there a conflict of interest anyway since LL is representing another person accused of that crime?

Basically, why did the episode end with a shot of LL looking stricken and worried instead of pulling out his phone and calling the cops? I thought it was laughable but my partner said some thing about the US legal system being adversarial and lawyers don't have to report the crimes their clients admit to, no matter how grave they are. Is this true?

Posted Jul 24, 2023, 12:40 AM UTC

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myBisL2•

Attorney client privilege is taken very seriously in the US. In general, yes, you can admit to serious crimes to your lawyer and you are protected. There are exceptions, which include if a client seeks advice from an attorney on furthering or covering up a crime. But if the crime has already occurred, attorney client privilege allows the client to tell their lawyer about it and they cannot break that confidentiality without risking being disbarred and no longer being able to practice as an attorney.

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WorldWideWigOP•

That's very interesting and good to know.

Do you know anything about the potential conflict of interest between LL's ability to represent his original client, or the other question about the driver taking an out-of-hours retainer payment and whether that would be considered a contract?

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internetboyfriend666•

How is that still his client? Surely his contract with Tattoo guy ended when the B&E case finished.

A lawyer's duty to keep their client's confidences is for life. I have to take my client's secrets to the grave with me, unless some exception applies or the client consents to me sharing their information.

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Surely a driver taking CC information/cash (I can't remember which) after hours cannot construe a formal contract with a lawyer.

Maybe, maybe not. The test for when an attorney-client relationship is formed isn't about they exchange of money or a formal written agreement. The agreement is formed when the client asks the lawyer for legal advice and reasonably believes the lawyer is representing them. This can happen without any payment of money or signed retainer agreement.

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Doesn't the attorney have the obligation to report that kind of confession to a very serious crime?

Absolutely not. This is the exact thing that the duty to protect client confidences is meant to protect. How can an lawyer do their job if they have to disclose prior crimes committed by their clients? There are some exceptions, like if the client uses to attorney's advice in order to commit a crime, or if the attorney is reasonably certain the client is going to commit a crime that would cause serious harm in the future, but otherwise, the duty is almost absolute.

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Why would an attorney have to represent someone who broke into their home and threatened their family and their livelihood?

They wouldn't. This is a work of fiction. Fiction can work however it wants. They don't have to follow real-world rules.

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Isn't there a conflict of interest anyway since LL is representing another person accused of that crime, client A

Probably, yes. But see my answer above about works of fiction.

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southdakotagirl•

What happens if the client dies? Can you share knowledge of the tattoo in this case ans free the wrongly accused client?

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WorldWideWigOP•

Thank you for your answer.

I get that it's a work of fiction but again, I couldn't understand why he didn't call the cops or a judge after the client broke into his house, why he felt so vulnerable to attorney-client privilege that it meant he couldn't even report a crime being actively perpetrated on himself. Or why he couldn't say "you're not my client anymore so that doesn't apply". Tattoo guys original case was over and done with, then he broke into LL's house and said "I paid you a retainer, I did the murder, now you can't accuse me of the murder", he was not asking for legal advice on the matter and his only claim to representation at that point was the out-of-hours payment to the driver.

Again, I'm well aware it's fiction and I'm sure this is going to be stretched out over the entire season until LL gets him to trip himself up in a court or something. I was just really surprised at how supposedly easy it was for the crim to screw over the lawyer with attorney-client privilege when I figured a few phone calls to the right people would have solved the issue.

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internetboyfriend666•

I never seen the show so I don't fully understand the plot, but I'll refer you to my above answer about how the attorney-client relationship is formed. It sounds like you're saying the person broke into the lawyers house after paying the retainer and simply and then confessed to the crime. In that circumstance it's very unlikely that an attorney-client relationship had formed because again, simply paying a lawyer does not establish that relationship. If a lawyer is unsure of what to do in a situation, they can always consult their state bar association (the bar is the organization that grants lawyers their license to practice law) to determine the best course of action. So in this case, if the Lincoln Lawyer wanted to be safe, he could consult with the bar to determine if an attorney-client relationship had formed, and if not, he'd be under no obligation to keep the murder's identity secret.

Regardless, lawyers are allowed to call the police when they're being threatened by clients just the same as if they were threatened by any other person. That doesn't necessarily by itself allow them to break privilege, but being a lawyer doesn't mean you have to sit by while your clients are violent towards you.

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WorldWideWigOP•

Thanks again for clearing stuff up. I don't mind suspending some belief but that scene pushed my limits. Having said that, I haven't seen episode 2 so maybe he will go and seek some advice but I'm pretty sure the season will play out as I suggested above.

I did some reading up and learned that attorney-client privilege is pretty universal. I read a case in the UK where a lawyer handed over a case file in a murder case to make sure the right person was prosecuted for the crime and was disbarred 40 years later after he had retired and gave an interview to a newspaper about what he'd done. Everyone he worked with knew what he had done at the time but no one reported him or complained.

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internetboyfriend666•

Yea it's pretty ironclad. In law school we all had to take a legal ethics course and a lot of it covers how serious the confidential relationship is. Part of that course was the story of an innocent man who was wrongly convicted of 2 murders and spent 26 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.

The real killer was represented by 2 lawyers. Their client told them he was the real killer and even though they knew that an innocent person was behind bars for those murders, they still had to keep their client's secret, even though it meant keeping an innocent man in prison.

They were only allowed to disclose that their client was the real murderer because the client given permission for them to reveal that information after he died. Had he not told them that, they would still have to keep that fact a secret forever.

So yea, that's how serious it is. Those 2 lawyers had to live with knowing an innocent person was in prison for 26 years and they could never disclose that they knew it.

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Ambitious-Writer-825•

You need to watch the rest of the episodes that are out. Most of your questions are answered by the last episode.

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WorldWideWigOP•

Good to know, thanks!

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gdanning•

I am skeptical that the privilege will apply. See this ABA discussion, which notes, "Communications will only be privileged if the party sought, and the attorney rendered, legal advice. Because the privilege is contrary to the judicial goal of bringing relevant evidence to light, it is construed narrowly and protects only those disclosures necessary to obtain informed legal advice which might not have been made absent the privilege." It does not sound like the murderer was seeking legal advice.

Also, I doubt that sending the money creates an attorney-client relationship.

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