Step Seven: Communicating With Your Lawyer


"Never write if you can speak, never speak if you can nod, never nod if you can wink."

— Attributed to the 19th century Boston political boss Martin Lomasney.

All your communications with your lawyer are covered under what is called the Attorney-client privilege.

“Attorney-client privilege is a US-American legal concept that protects certain communications between a client and their attorney and prevents the attorney from being compelled to testify to those communications in court.” Wikipedia.org

The “privilege” belongs to the client not to the attorney. Thus only the client can waive that privilege. However, and this is a very important “however,” a client can inadvertently waive, meaning lose the attorney-client privilege by doing something as simple as forwarding the lawyer’s emails to the client, to someone else. In other words, if your lawyer sends you an email, you could lose the attorney-client privilege by forwarding that email to a friend.

You may be wondering how the opposing side would be able to view your emails. If so, ask your lawyer about the discovery process or read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_(law)

Likewise, if the opposing lawyer discovers that you have been discussing your legal matter openly with lots of people, and perhaps relaying to them discussions you have had with your lawyer, those people can or may be subject to being subpoenaed to testify during your trial. And most importantly, if you waive/lose your attorney-client privilege, your lawyer can be compelled to testify, which is something that you absolutely don’t want to happen.

In Step Number Three, we were discussing talking to people who may have a great deal of knowledge of your legal matter and may be able to provide important facts. It is fine to have you do so, but you should never discuss your legal matter with anyone who would not be a good witness for you if they were called to testify. As a general rule, the fewer people with whom you discuss your legal matter, the better. The fact is, most of your friends really don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about your legal quagmire, issues or problems. And the friends who really do love talking about your legal problems, are exactly the types of people who you should not be talking about your legal problems with.