The fundamental concept of a lawyer and also the relevance of client confidentiality are evident to even probably the most unaware person. If the client agrees to reveal the information or the court demands it then the situation can be treated as an exception to the code. The reason why this process needs to be followed is the need for an honest relationship between the client and the lawyer. The information the clients give out is protected because of this rule in place. This rule includes a lot of clauses. In addition, the lawyer is not permitted to reveal whether a person is his client.
The validity of the agreement extends to a period even after the lawyer no longer defends his client. Lawyers are not permitted to discuss the case with anybody under any circumstances. A small town makes it very hard to successfully hide the client’s identity.
Lawyers are allowed to reveal the information if they feel it can prevent a prospective crime. If a situation arises when the client actually reveals to the lawyer that he plans to commit a crime, the lawyer can be the whistle blower and inform the concerned authorities.
If the crime includes any sort of violence, the lawyer must in all circumstances disclose the information. The information must be brought to the attention of the police if the client wants to rob a bank. Should such a situation arise, there is more importance given to the public’s safety than the client’s anonymity.
If the client admits a past crime he committed what should the lawyer do? Since anything a lawyer may do cannot prevent the crime from taking place, as it already has, the lawyer is expected to keep the information confidentiality. The situation becomes more complex if the client commits the crime and immediately let’s his lawyer know.
A similar case made everybody take notice of this confusion. A set of videos could have easily been disclosed as evidence in a murder case but a lawyer kept them concealed while the murderer walked free. A loophole was brought to public notice after this case and this became the reason why the Law Society of Upper Canada had to review it.
The confidentiality rule does not prohibit the lawyer’s staff from gaining access to the information but it has to kept a secret. The court files are made available to the public in most cases which many lawyers do not take into account. Extra care needs to be taken before anything goes into a court document due to the easy access.
Another part of the rule is that confidential information cannot be used by the lawyer to benefit him or her, or anyone else. The rule book mentions that if a lawyer ever decides to pen down an autobiography, he must make sure that he does not make any mention of any information associated to any of his clients in the past. Lawyers have to stick to writing fiction.
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