Lawyers And Confidentiality
It’s not especially hard to realize what a lawyer performs and also the aspects that make client confidentiality incredibly essential. Lawyers have a code of conduct which prohibits them from sharing any information they gain during a relationship with a client. If a situation arises when the lawyer has to disclose the information as a legal obligation or as the client’s request he may do so. Unless a client fully understands the need to be candid with his lawyer he cannot be adequately represented. The rule was added to the code only to allow the clients to be able to tell their lawyer anything. The implications of this rule are very widespread. This rule also enables the client to keep his dealings with the lawyer a secret.
The closure of the client-lawyer relationship does not nullify the confidentiality agreement in any way. Even if the subject is anonymous, the lawyers cannot gossip about the case they are working on. Unlike in a large city, people in a small town will easily deduce the client’s identity.
If the revelation of the information helps in averting a criminal act, then the confidentiality rule can make an exception. For instance, if the client says he will steal a car the following day, the lawyer could choose to inform the police about the action.
If there is any sort of violence involved in the crime, the lawyer has to inform the concerned authorities. The lawyer should call the police if he discovers that the client intends to rob a bank. Such cases call for giving preferential treatment to the public’s protection than the client’s right to secrecy.
The lawyers are extremely confused about what they ought to do should the clients confess a past crime. The rule mentions that revealing the confession to the authorities will not in any way prevent the crime from taking place which is why it should be kept a secret. The exception becomes further complicated if the crime was committed in the very recent past, say the same day.
After this happened one time, this anomaly was brought to light. The leader’s lawyer had possession of the incriminating videotapes for 17 months while the murder investigation was underway, but did not reveal them to police. The Law Society of Upper Canada needed to take a look into the features of the confidentiality rule in the code of conduct because of this controversy.
Lawyers need to ensure that nobody in their office violates the confidentiality rule as well. Most people do not realize that what they put into these documents as these are actually made public. These court documents should therefore not contain any information which needs to kept away from the general public.
The confidentiality rule clearly mentions that any information that benefits a lawyer or his associates is not protected under the rule. The lawyer’s code of conduct prohibits their autobiographies from containing any information which may embarrass their clients. Lawyers have to stick to writing fiction.
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