A lawyer can be generally defined as a professional hired to provide legal advice and zealously represent the best interests of his or her client in court or other legal matters. According to society, lawyers are supposed to solve our legal problems and help us achieve the specific results that we want.

A lawyer’s main duty is to advise his or her client accordingly. The lawyer must exercise independent professional judgment and deliver unbiased and frank legal advice. In this article, we’ll explore the scope of a lawyer’s representation of a particular client on a particular matter. We’ll specifically look at a lawyer’s duty to abide by his or her client’s decisions, and a lawyer’s duty, as an officer of the court, to represent his or her client within the bounds of the law.

Next, we’ll take a look at the lawyer’s duty to abide by the client’s decision.

When an individual seeks out the help of a lawyer, that person is looking for someone to help them solve a problem or achieve a certain result. In other words, you are looking for some legally educated person to give you advice on how to pursue and meet the objectives you are looking to achieve.

When a lawyer gives a client advice, it is then up to the client to make a decision based on that advice. Once the client makes a certain decision, the lawyer has a duty to abide by that specific decision. It is important to note, however, that the lawyer’s duty to abide by such a decision does not then indicate that the lawyer is endorsing the client’s views or activities. Let’s use an example to flesh out this concept.

Let’s say that John seeks out the help of a lawyer to file a civil suit. John was in a terrible car accident, and as a result has suffered from many physical ailments. John wants to sue the other driver for damages in order to pay his medical bills, and for loss of wages due to his inability to work. John’s lawyer files suit for one million dollars and appears with him in court. At court, the other driver makes an offer to John. The other driver offers to pay John one hundred thousand dollars—an amount substantially smaller than the original amount of damages John was seeking. Upon this amount being offered, John’s lawyer sits him down and explains the repercussions of both accepting and not accepting this offer. Based on his lawyer’s advice, John decides to accept the offer for the substantially smaller amount. In this scenario, the lawyer must abide by John’s decision, regardless of whether he thinks it is a good idea or not to go that route.

Next, let’s look at the legal boundaries within which a lawyer must act.

If you recall, we previously discussed how a lawyer is duty-bound to abide by his or her client’s decision. However, when practicing law, the lawyer must also remember to "stay in bounds." So what exactly do we mean by this?

Well, a lawyer cannot advise his client to act in such a manner that the lawyer knows is criminal. A lawyer can discuss how certain actions would be unlawful, and explain why certain paths would be considered to be illegal, but a lawyer cannot recommend illegal actions. Additionally, if the lawyer renders advice on how to proceed in a certain situation, and the lawyer discovers that his or her client is using his perfectly legal advice to engage in imperfect illegal behavior, the lawyer must withdraw from further representing that client (and may even have to report his or her client’s illegal activities).

It is important to note, however, that although a lawyer cannot recommend that his or her client engage in illegal conduct, the lawyer is permitted to test the extent or soundness of a particular law. For example, in the early 1960s a lawyer may have advised his or her African-American client to walk in and sit down in a restaurant, despite the fact that there was a law that permitted discrimination against African-American people. Under these circumstances, perhaps the lawyer was testing the constitutionality of such a law. Perhaps the goal was to refute any charges or repercussions that the client then faced by making argument as to why the law needed to be changed.

NOTE: An attorney-client privilege is created between a client and a lawyer when a client engages his or her attorney for legal advice. The attorney-client privilege protects the client, as the lawyer cannot divulge that information to others. For example, if a client tells the lawyer about past illegal activities, the lawyer generally cannot divulge that information to others (unless for extreme situations such as to save a life). However, if the client tells the lawyer about future criminal acts the lawyer can (and usually must) divulge that information to appropriate authorities. Bottom line: The attorney-client privilege protects past criminal acts, but not future criminal acts that are divulged to the attorney during the course of legal representation.

Finally, let’s conclude this article with a brief overview of a few key points.

In this article, we outlined how a lawyer’s main duty is to advise his or her client accordingly. The lawyer must exercise independent professional judgment and deliver unbiased and frank legal advice.

In this article, we further explored the scope of a lawyer’s representation of a particular client on a particular matter. We specifically looked at a lawyer’s duty to abide by his or her client’s decisions, and a lawyer’s duty, as an officer of the court, to represent his or her client within the bounds of the law.