(04-20-2018 03:48 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(04-20-2018 03:41 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(04-20-2018 02:51 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(04-20-2018 02:41 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(04-20-2018 01:51 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Let's say Hannity had meetings with Cohen on a weekly basis in 2017 to discuss his legal affairs relating to real estate, yet Cohen never billed nor represented Hannity. And during all of these meetings, Hannity requested ACP. In your mind, should Hannity have disclosed the relationship?
Cohen is obligated to observe ACP, but there were no financial transactions or legal representation.

What indication do we have to indicate that Hannity met with him weekly for a year to discuss real estate?

I was asking a hypothetical to gauge your thoughts - hence the "let's say" at the front.
You said you could think of plenty situations where someone wouldn't be compelled to disclose the relationship. I was wondering if you felt that was one of those situations.

I don't see the point of discussing a hypothetical that has no apparent relationship to facts. My only point was that you could have a situation where attorney A says, "I treated B as a client," but layman B says, "A was not my attorney," or, "I was not a client of A," and both could be correct within their individual contexts.

Let's try this a different way. Let's focus not on Cohen but on Hannity. At what point would you say that the relationship crosses the line into becoming one that Hannity is duty-bound to disclose? In other words, where do you draw that line?

I've been explicit about that - that line is drawn when one explicitly asks for ACP. At the point, in my opinion, it's clear that Hannity has become a "client' of Cohen because he was asking an attorney for a privilege that only exists between an attorney and client. Logic dictates that this this situation, the non-attorney member of the ACP must be the "client."

So that's why I keep bringing up how Hannity explicitly requested ACP with Cohen when discussing legal matters, and he says. That is the line - the explicit request for confidentiality that only exists between an attorney and a "client." And as we have demonstrated, the term "client" has multiple definitions in this sense.

You should restate that to ACP exists between an attorney and certain other people, including but not limited to clients.

Client is a true word of art that really means only one thing to an attorney, Lad. If you are a client, you enjoy the full gamut of protections under the Canon or Ethics. If you are not a client, you dont. There are no multiple definitions. There *are* other people who *might* enjoy certain protections under the Canon of Ethics, some of those under the ACP. But those other people will almost *never* be referred to as a 'client' by an attorney. Period.

They *might* be referred to as such when the DOJ asks 'who are your clients' under the auspices of a Hoovering of the clients office and files. The astute attorney includes those 'other people' as 'clients' in that limited sense, and for that limited purpose so as to protect the privilege for those other people.

The problem you are using a *very* particular word of art like Conan using a club in this instance of your 'thesis'.