Protect or (Save) Your Case (Continued)

by Bob Leonard, Jr.

            Last week, I discussed ways that you can help your lawyer to represent you and perhaps save your case from failure.  This is a continuation of that article.

            One of the areas that clients usually hurt their attorney's work on the case has to do with their day-to-day cooperation.  Lawsuits have significant and critical deadlines.  For example, if you are served discovery (questions or requests from the other side) you are generally given 30 days to respond.  Failure to respond properly and fully can have significant effects, even to the point of completely destroying your case.  It is not uncommon, however, for an attorney to send these requests to the client with the attorney's own request that the client provide documents and information, and just a few days before the response is due, the attorney is on the phone with the client begging him to get started in providing the necessary help.  Remember, the attorney can argue your case, but you are sometimes exclusively in charge of all of the evidence and knowledge of the case.  Not responding to your attorney properly would be the same as going to the emergency room at a hospital and refusing to tell the doctors where you hurt.

            Another big mistake that non-lawyers make when involved in lawsuits is not being able to keep their mouths shut.  Anything that you discuss with your lawyer is privileged (with a few exceptions).  Your lawyer cannot be required to reveal it in court.  This gives you the freedom to have open and honest communications with your attorney which is critical to his or her representation of you.  Anything that you discuss with your lawyer that you later discuss with someone else is not covered by the privilege.  If you have a conference in your lawyer's office and then go and discuss it with your mother-in-law, your best friend, or even another lawyer, then you have likely waived the privilege.  That means any of the people involved, including your lawyer, could be forced to testify about this matter in court.  Even though you believe that the people that you are talking to will not tell anyone else, it is a hugely common experience in our office for our conversations with clients to come back to us from other sources.  Clearly, someone is not keeping his or her mouth shut.  If the information comes back to us, we can only assume that it might find its way to the other party who can then use the waiver of the attorney/client privilege to ask our client on the witness stand about conversations that the client otherwise would not be forced to reveal.

            Your attorney should discuss all of the above with you at the start of his representation of you.  If he doesn't, bring these matters up yourself. You need for your attorney to have confidence that you are going to act in such a way that helps him to be successful in the case.  While no attorney likes to lose a case, we all recognize that generally one side or the other does not prevail.  If it does not prevail because the facts are not on our side then that is simply the way that the system worked.  If it does not prevail because our client torpedoed his own case, then that means that the attorney did not do an adequate job of controlling his client.  Keep these thoughts in mind and you should increase the chances that you will prevail in your lawsuit.  If you want us to help you do that , then contact one of the attorneys at the Bob Leonard Law Group at www.bobleonard.com or (817) 336-8500.