Pennsylvania Code › Title 204 - JUDICIAL SYSTEM GENERAL PROVISIONS › Part V - PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND CONDUCT › Subpart A - PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY › Chapter 81 - RULES OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT › Subchapter A - RULES OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT › COUNSELOR › Rule 2.1 - Advisor

Current through Register Vol. 54, No. 28, July 13, 2024
In representing a client, a lawyer shall exercise
						  independent professional judgment and render candid advice. In rendering
						  advice, a lawyer may refer not only to law but to other considerations such as
						  moral, economic, social and political factors, that may be relevant to the
						  client's situation.
Comment:
Scope of Advice
(1) A client is entitled to straightforward
						advice expressing the lawyer's honest assessment. Legal advice often involves
						unpleasant facts and alternatives that a client may be disinclined to confront.
						In presenting advice, a lawyer endeavors to sustain the client's morale and may
						put advice in as acceptable a form as honesty permits. However, a lawyer should
						not be deterred from giving candid advice by the prospect that the advice will
						be unpalatable to the client.
(2)
						Advice couched in narrow legal terms may be of little value to a client,
						especially where practical considerations, such as cost or effects on other
						people, are predominant. Purely technical legal advice, therefore, can
						sometimes be inadequate. It is proper for a lawyer to refer to relevant moral
						and ethical considerations in giving advice. Although a lawyer is not a moral
						advisor as such, moral and ethical considerations impinge upon most legal
						questions and may decisively influence how the law will be applied.
(3) A client may expressly or impliedly ask
						the lawyer for purely technical advice. When such a request is made by a client
						experienced in legal matters, the lawyer may accept it at face value. When such
						a request is made by a client inexperienced in legal matters, however, the
						lawyer's responsibility as advisor may include indicating that more may be
						involved than strictly legal considerations.
(4) Matters that go beyond strictly legal
						questions may also be in the domain of another profession. Family matters can
						involve problems within the professional competence of psychiatry, clinical
						psychology or social work; business matters can involve problems within the
						competence of the accounting profession or of financial specialists. Where
						consultation with a professional in another field is itself something a
						competent lawyer would recommend, the lawyer should make such a recommendation.
						At the same time, a lawyer's advice at its best often consists of recommending
						a course of action in the face of conflicting recommendations of experts.
Offering Advice
(5) In general, a lawyer is not expected to
						give advice until asked by the client. However, when a lawyer knows that a
						client proposes a course of action that is likely to result in substantial
						adverse legal consequences to the client, the lawyer's duty to the client under
						Rule 1.4 may require that the lawyer
						offer advice if the client's course of action is related to the representation.
						Similarly, when a matter is likely to involve litigation, it may be necessary
						under Rule
						1.4 to inform the client of forms
						of dispute resolution that might constitute reasonable alternatives to
						litigation. A lawyer ordinarily has no duty to initiate investigation of a
						client's affairs or to give advice that the client has indicated is unwanted,
						but a lawyer may initiate advice to a client when doing so appears to be in the
						client's interest.