Position Paper - Legal Counseling

Babejes, Lizabeth V.
Legal Counseling
Position Paper re: Client Centered Counseling and Moral Accountability for
Lawyers By Robert M. Bastress
This article advocates both client-centered counseling and moral accountability for
lawyers. Although the two models may at first glance seem inconsistent, the discussion will
show that they are necessarily interdependent. The article will primarily focus on the
development of a duty for lawyers to independently assess the consequences of their
advocacy.
These consist of several steps. Part I is the Lawyer-client relationship, and Part II is
the Lawyers obligation, the Part 1 and 11 summarize two views of the attorney's moral
responsibility, that the lawyer is simply an advocate and has little or no accountability for
what he advocates. Part III capsulizes the alternative-that the lawyer should exercise
independent moral judgment. Part IV then explains the relationship between the
client-centered and morally independent models. Finally, Part V describes how moral
accountability for lawyers can be implemented.
In this article the lawyer should be accepting, supportive, and nonjudgmental. The
lawyers should make his client free to talk and let him understand what his client is going
through, the lawyer should offer an understanding that will convince the client he remains a
human being worth caring about regardless of the facts or desires he reveals. The moment
the client feels more comfortable with the situation, he/she may feel that the secret is
secured enough to disclose. Most of the clients have an attitude that helps the client to be
open and to acquire greater self-awareness.
Under the case at bar, and the Code of Professional Responsibility (CPR), this
explains the Part I and II of the article.;
The relationship between a lawyer and his client is one imbued with utmost trust and
confidence. In this regard, clients are led to expect that lawyers would be ever-mindful of
their cause, and accordingly, exercise the required degree of diligence in handling their
affairs. Accordingly, lawyers are required to maintain, at all times, a high standard of legal
proficiency, and to devote their full attention, skill, and competence to their cases,
regardless of their importance, and whether they accept them for a fee or for free.
Lawyers may not reveal oral or written communications with clients that clients
reasonably expect to remain private. A lawyer who has received a client’s confidence cannot
repeat them to anyone outside the legal team without the client’s consent.
These principles are embodied in Rule 10.01 of Canon 10 and Rule 18.03 of Canon 18 of
the CPR, which respectively read as follows:
“CANON 10 - A LAWYER OWES CANDOR, FAIRNESS AND GOOD FAITH TO THE COURT.
Rule 10.01 - A lawyer shall not do any falsehood, nor consent to the doing of any in court;
nor shall he mislead, or allow the Court to be misled by any artifice.1âwphi1
CANON 18 -A LAWYER SHALL SERVE HIS CLIENT WITH COMPETENCE AND DILIGENCE.
Rule 18.03 - A lawyer shall not neglect a legal matter entrusted to him, and his negligence in
connection therewith shall render him liable.”
One of the desirable of lawyers as to the moral independence and greatest

achievement is the Legal education, for which, law students are trained to become
one of the best lawyers, because Law is, for the most part, learned as an academic
exercise without examination of human element'" and lawyers are seen as fungible
advocates for parties on either side of an issue.
Under Part III, A counseling relationship based on falsehoods is doomed to

failure. An "open and accepting" approach requires respect for the client and a
willingness to listen; it does not mean that the counselor surrenders all his social,
political, and moral commitments to each client. The relationships arise from
partnership and privileged communication. In the case at bar, in;
“The court said: "The reason of the principle which holds such communications not to be
privileged is that it is not within the professional character of a lawyer to give advice upon such
subjects, and that it is no part of the profession of an attorney or counselor at law to be advising
persons as to how they may commit crimes or frauds, or how they may escape the consequences
of contemplated crimes and frauds. If the crime or fraud has already been committed and
finished, a client may advise with an attorney in regard to it, and communicate with him freely,
and the communications cannot be divulged as evidence without the consent of the client,
because it is a part of the business and duty of those engaged in the practice of the profession of
law, when employed and relied upon for that purpose, to give advice to those who have made
infractions of the laws; and, to enable the attorney to properly advise and to properly represent
the client in court or when prosecutions are threatened, it is conducive to the administration of
justice that the client shall be free to communicate to his attorney all the facts within his
knowledge, and that he may be assured that a communication made by him shall not be used to
his prejudice." Standard F. Ins. Co. v. Smithhart (1919) 183 Ky 679, 211 SW 441, 5 ALR 972,”
The protection which the law affords to communications between attorney and
client has reference to those which are legitimately and properly within the scope of a
lawful employment, and does not extend to communications made in contemplation
of a crime, or perpetration of a fraud.
The moral accountability of the lawyer in dealing with the client by having
privileged communication is that the employment of the client to his lawyers to secure
legal advice, and represent him/her to court. Hence, the lawyer is bound by the Code
of Professional Responsibility, the IBP has developed ethical canons that explicitly
obligate lawyers to independently assess the consequences of each of their
undertakings. The canons should incorporate standards to help lawyers make that
assessment. Those standards should address both the means and end.
The moral obligations of the lawyers as the advocates, is that they assumed as
the representative of his client. Also, the purpose of the article is to guide our lawyers
of their limitations as the representative of the clients and the rule on privilege
communication, the moral obligations to his client and as the officer of court. The
integrated Bar of the Philippines, articulates the lawyers duties and responsibilities as
the advocate to the case.

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Babejes, Lizabeth V.

One of the desirable of lawyers as to the moral independence and greatest

Under Part III, A counseling relationship based on falsehoods is doomed to

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