What attorney-client privilege? Seems like a big bogus joke to me.
The truth about attorney-client privilege
The president and his pals just love the tussle now under way between Paula Jones and her former lawyers, Joseph Cammarata and Gilbert Davis. It will be remembered that the two of them quit when Mrs. Jones declined their advice to settle for a big cash payment. Now they want to be paid for all the work they did on her behalf, lawyering that adds up to the tidy sum of $759,870 -- (an amount, it should be noted, that is greater than but not far from the $700,000 settlement they wanted Mrs. Jones to accept). To collect what they think they are owed, Mr. Davis and Mr. Cammarata are suing their former client in U.S. District Court in Arkansas. And to prove that they should be paid, the lawyers are revealing details of their confidential conversations and correspondence with Mrs. Jones.
ÿÿÿÿÿWhat ever happened to Mrs. Jones' right that her conversations with her lawyers be kept a secret?
ÿÿÿÿÿFor the last couple of weeks, the airwaves have been thick with lawyerly bluster about the inviolability of the lawyer-client privilege. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, it will be remembered, is trying to obtain three pages of notes taken by Vince Foster's lawyer in the days before Mr. Foster killed himself. In an effort to wrap up his investigation into the Travel Office firings, Mr. Starr wants to see those notes -- he can't, after all, interview Mr. Foster -- and argues that the lawyer-client privilege is not worth that much when the client is dead.
ÿÿÿÿÿMr. Starr's effort not only ended up in front of the Supreme Court last week, it has elicited shock and outrage of almost hysterical proportions from the legal community. What client will confide in his attorney, they cry, if he knows his secrets might be revealed after his death? The American Bar Association weighed in on the Supreme Court case to argue that millions of Americans would forgo legal advice if they suspected that their confidences could be revealed after their deaths.
ÿÿÿÿÿBut just how important really is the lawyer-client privilege to the legal community? Look at the information Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Cammarata have dumped into the public record: They brought a $700,000 settlement to Mrs. Jones and argued for her to accept it; they told her a settlement would ensure her fortune; they told her she could sell a book; they told her the most valuable selling point for the book would be her description of the president's distinguishing characteristic. Would Mrs. Jones have had candid conversations with Mr. Davis and Mr. Cammarata if she knew that the lawyers would later reveal to the public details of those conversations? Hardly. And yet where are all the lawyers recently so eloquent on the subject of attorney-client privilege?
ÿÿÿÿÿIt seems that there is already a big exception to the lawyer client privilege -- if you don't pay your lawyers' bills. There are competing interests at play. Which is more important, Mrs. Jones' expectation of confidentiality or the lawyers' desire to get paid?
ÿÿÿÿÿWhen Mr. Starr said there was a state interest in getting at the truth in a criminal investigation, the bar declared that the attorney-client privilege was even more important than that goal. But Mr. Davis and Mr. Cammarata represent a very different sort of interest -- the lawyer's interest in getting his fees. It turns out that's the sort of public policy goal lawyers can get behind: the heck with the lawyer-client privilege if it stands in the way of collecting billable hours.
ÿÿÿÿÿThe Clintonistas have jumped on the information provided by Mr. Davis and Mr. Cammarata, using it in their ongoing effort to discredit Mrs. Jones. She is only interested in the money, they proclaim, and point to the fact that her lawyers' advice was all about maximizing revenues. But the evidence proves the opposite point. If Mrs. Jones had been interested merely in getting rich, she would have greedily gobbled up the settlement, and sold a book. She didn't do it. Instead, she held out for an apology -- not for more money, for an apology. It seems that it was her attorneys who had their sights on the cash. And now that fact has led them to toss aside the confidentiality that Ms. Jones had a right to expect.
ÿÿÿÿÿThe whole affair has hardly been the legal profession's finest hour.
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