Saturday, April 12, 2008

So You Want To Be a Lawyer

Just remember, being a lawyer means holding your client's skeletons in their closets. Even murder.

2 comments:

Nelson said...

You might be familiar, but probably not your readers, about another classic privilege case:

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/the_toughest_call/

"While the two lawyers insisted that their duty of client confidentiality obliged them to remain silent, they were widely reviled outside the pro­fession for withholding the information. Their once-thriving law practices withered. They received hate mail and death threats.

Longtime friends stopped speaking to them. They had to move out of their homes. Belge eventually gave up his law practice altogether, while Armani slowly rebuilt his.

A grand jury investigated both men, ultimately indicting Belge, who had been alone when he found one of the bodies. He admitted moving the remains to get a better picture and was charged with failing to report a dead body, then failing to provide it with a decent burial. On the day the grand jury announced its decision, Armani suffered a heart attack."

Steve said...

I definitely remember reading this article, and I think I remember this case in Pro Res.

It's difficult, sometimes, to do the right thing.