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What's An Attorney Client Privilege
Anyway?
Welcome to this
month’s edition of the Lawyers Stink E-mail Newsletter. This month’s rant
centers around the so called attorney-client privilege concept. What in
the world is this attorney-client privilege? Why in the world would anyone
put the words attorneys, client and privilege in the same sentence?
I mean, come on for crying out loud, does anybody walking around America
with an IQ over 20 (that would certainly exempt most judges, wouldn’t it?)
truly believe that meeting, seeing or talking to an attorney is any kind
of privilege whatsoever?
Oh, I know there are some of you lawyers out there (hey, we know you read
our monthly rants just like the rest of us non-lawyers) saying to
yourself, “This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about here. The
attorney-client privilege isn’t about the privilege of dealing with the
attorney.” No joke.
In its strictest sense and by legal definition, the attorney-client
privilege would be defined as follows:
All communications by and between an attorney and his or her client are
automatically privileged (or in other words - confidential).
The attorney client privilege theoretically encourages clients to be
completely truthful with their attorneys, since all attorneys are bound to
keep such conversations confidential. With the attorney-client privilege
in place, the legal advice rendered by the attorney can be based on all
relevant facts. Does anybody really believe that crock?
Since when does the truth and attorneys have the even the remotest thing
to do with the law or, for that matter, each other? Here’s the real easy
answer - never. In Chapter Six of
It’s Time to Wake Up and Smell the
Lawyers, we fully explore why lawyers make good liars and liars make good
lawyers. Lying and lawyers have always gone hand in hand. To read an
excerpt of Chapter Six, simply click
Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire.
When you think about it, the phrase “attorney-client privilege” is
something of a misnomer, wouldn’t you agree? In our very own
Online Legal
Dictionary, which is of course our version of legalese, we define the
attorney-client privilege a bit differently. Before we give you our legal
definition of attorney-client privilege, I want all of you nit picking
lawyers out there to realize we made the definition up. That means our
legal interpretation may not coincide with your expensive legal
dictionary’s definition. In fact, it’s not going to match at all. OK?
Good grief, where were we? Oh yeah, I was going to provide our made up
definition of attorney client privilege. So here goes.
“The so-called privilege bestowed upon the client wherein he or she
receives the contrived benefit of paying the lawyer $100, $200 or more per
hour to screw up his or her case.”
Now that’s more like it. If you are one of the unfortunate souls who have
had to deal with a lawyer in the past (and your number is growing larger
every day since everyone seems to be constantly suing somebody over
something or another), you know dog-gone well that our definition gets a
lot closer to the hole.
If you want my opinion (and even if you don’t), I think attorneys should
have to pay us for having to put up with all of their nonsensical
behavior. Attorneys should consider it a privilege that anyone would ever
listen to their endless bombastic diatribe or for that matter, want to
even be in the same room with these pretentious stiffs. After all, nobody
likes attorneys. Nobody! I’ve even had attorneys tell me that they don’t
like attorneys either. Can’t blame them there.
Having to pay a nincompoop attorney thousands of dollars to drag your case
out for years can hardly be considered a privilege, can it? Having
attorneys double or triple bill you and then turn around and gig you for
copying charges to boot can hardly be deemed a privilege either, wouldn’t
you agree? Having to watch attorneys systematically turn a once proud
nation into a pathetic group of money grubbing crybabies looking to cash
in on the next lawsuit lottery is no privilege at all. Attorney-client
privilege? Puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeeeze.
Here’s hoping that you never have the unseemly “privilege” of having to
deal with an attorney - up close and way too personal. If and when you
have an attorney represent you in a lawsuit, you’ll discover that there’s
certainly no privilege whatsoever when you’re dealing with attorneys. With
the hundreds of thousands of attorneys looking for trouble in all the
wrong places, that privilege will most likely happen to you a lot sooner
than you think.
I rest my case.
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