| The Attorney-Client Relationship |
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Our duties are to provide competent representation, to act with reasonable diligence and promptness, to keep our client reasonably informed about the status of his or her case and promptly comply with our client’s reasonable requests for information, and to explain issues to our client as reasonably necessary to permit our client to make informed decisions about the case. Within the limits imposed by law and our professional ethical obligations, we abide by our client’s decisions concerning the objectives of our representation. If we become aware that our client expects assistance not permitted by law or our professional ethical obligations, we consult with our client regarding the relevant limitations on our conduct.
Unless our client consents after consultation or impliedly authorizes us to make a disclosure in order to carry out the representation, we cannot reveal our client’s confidences or secrets relating to our representation, except in circumstances defined in our Rules of Professional Conduct (for example, to prevent the client from committing a crime in the future). This is famously known as the attorney-client privilege, and it is the strongest confidentiality privilege known to the law. It is our client’s privilege, not ours. In other words, our client, not we, decides if or when to waive the privilege.
This makes it possible for our client to discharge his or her reciprocal obligations—to be absolutely candid and forthcoming with us, to provide to us complete, truthful information reasonably promptly as we request it or as our client may know we need it even without our request. We believe it is critically important to marshal the facts as our client perceives them and to establish our general strategy and goals with our client as early as possible. Our fees must be fair and reasonable, and we make every effort to keep our fees and costs to a minimum, but our ability to do so requires our client’s complete cooperation.
We cannot undertake the representation of another client whose interests directly conflict with our client’s interests without first obtaining our client’s written consent (and the consent of the other client) after disclosure and consultation with our client. We cannot represent a client in a particular problem if our representation of the client’s interests might be materially limited by our responsibilities to another client, to someone else, or by our own interests, without obtaining our client’s written consent after disclosure and consultation.
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