Opinion ID: 2084360
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Disclosure of clients' secrets.

Text: At the times relevant to this proceeding, Virginia's DR 4-101(B)(1) provided, with exceptions not here applicable, that a lawyer shall not knowingly ... [r]eveal a confidence or secret of his client. Va. S.Ct. Prof. Resp. Canons, DR 4-101(B)(1) (Michie 1998). DR 4-101(A) contains the following definitions: Confidence refers to information protected by the attorney-client privilege under applicable law, and secret refers to other information gained in the professional relationship that the client has requested be held inviolate or the disclosure of which would be embarrassing or would be likely to be detrimental to the client. [4] We take no position on the question whether there has been disclosure in this case of A.A.'s confidence[s], id., for we agree with the Board that Gonzalez revealed secrets gained in his professional relationship with A.A. and D.B.I. This conclusion would be inescapable even if we were to confine ourselves to the text of Gonzalez' motion to withdraw, and it is reinforced by the contents of the letters attached thereto. In the body of the motion, which Gonzalez submitted to the court for filing and mailed to opposing counsel in the underlying litigation, Gonzalez alleged that A.A. not only missed appointments and failed to provide necessary information, but also made misrepresentations to her attorneys. [5] We think it obvious that a public allegation by a client's own lawyer that the client deliberately lied to him would be embarrassing to the client and would be likely to be detrimental to her, within the meaning of DR 4-101(A). Indeed, it is difficult to understand how a reasonable person could conclude otherwise. The Hearing Committee was of the opinion that [t]he conduct of [A.A.] that is depicted in Gonzalez' [motion and] letters did not come to Gonzalez as a part of his fact-gathering for the case he was handling, and that therefore it should not be deemed `information gained in the professional relationship' between Gonzalez and his clients. We are unable to agree with this analysis. If the words information gained in the professional relationship are read literally and accorded their everyday meaning, then there can be no doubt that the information about A.A. disclosed by Gonzalez was so gained. If there had been no professional relationship, then the alleged facts of which Gonzalez complained  A.A.'s non-payment of her fees, her lack of cooperation, and her misrepresentations  would not have existed, and Gonzalez would neither have known them nor revealed them. There was simply no source, other than the professional relationship, from which Gonzalez could have gained the information about his clients that he chose to reveal. With a literal interpretation of Virginia's disciplinary rule plainly supporting the Board's analysis, we discern no persuasive reason to give the rule an artificially narrow reading. Chief Judge Howard T. Markey, sitting by designation, has eloquently captured the essence of the professional obligation at issue in this case: The broad commitment of the lawyer to respect confidences reposed in him is his talisman. Touching the very soul of lawyering, it rests upon a privilege which is that of the client, not that of the lawyer. Inaccurately described as the lawyer's privilege against testifying, the privilege of clients to bind their lawyers to secrecy is universally honored and enforced as productive of social values more important than the search for truth. Canon 4 is designed to preserve the trust of the client in his lawyer, without which the practice of law, whatever else it might become, would cease to be a profession. Fred Weber, Inc. v. Shell Oil Co., 566 F.2d 602, 607 (8th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 436 U.S. 905, 98 S.Ct. 2235, 56 L.Ed.2d 403 (1978). [6] By turns both sacred and controversial, the principle of the confidentiality of client information is well-embedded in the traditional notion of the Anglo-American client-lawyer relationship. CHARLES W. WOLFRAM, MODERN LEGAL ETHICS § 6.1.1, at 242 (1986). The professional rules ... [embrace] a broad ethical duty not to divulge information about a client. Id. (emphasis added). An attorney's duty of confidentiality applies not only to privileged confidences, but also to unprivileged secrets; it exists without regard to the nature or source of the information or the fact that others share the knowledge. Perillo v. Johnson, 205 F.3d 775, 800 n. 9 (5th Cir.2000) (quoting ABA Model Code of Professional Responsibility Canon 4, DR 4-101 and EC 4-4) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). The confidentiality rule applies not merely to matters communicated in confidence by the client[,] but also to all information relating to the representation, whatever its source. Id. at 800 n. 10 (quoting ABA Model Rules of Professional Responsibility 1.6 & cmt.5) (emphasis added); accord, United States v. Edwards, 39 F.Supp.2d 716, 724 (M.D.La.1999) (collecting authorities); United States v. Mackey, 405 F.Supp. 854, 860 (E.D.N.Y.1975) (Weinstein, J.) (emphasizing breadth of attorney's obligation). A narrow reading of Virginia's rule  a construction that would countenance some disclosures by an attorney tending to demean or belittle his client  seems to us to be contrary to the fundamental principle that the attorney owes a fiduciary duty to his client and must serve the client's interests with the utmost loyalty and devotion. An interpretation of Virginia's DR 4-101(B)(1) by the Standing Committee on Legal Ethics of the Virginia State Bar Association supports our approach. In Legal Ethics Opinion No. 1300 (Nov. 16, 1989), the Committee took the position that identifying data about a client of a legal aid office is a secret since it might be an embarrassment to the client to have it revealed that he received services from a legal aid office. [7] The Committee described the attorney's ethical obligation to maintain his client's secrets as broad: The attorney-client privilege is more limited than the ethical obligation of a lawyer to guard the confidences and secrets of his client. This ethical precept, unlike the evidentiary privilege, exists without regard to the nature or source of information or the fact that others share the knowledge. Id. (emphasis added). [8] The Committee added that information falls within the ambit of the prohibition against revealing a client's secrets when that information has been gained in the professional relationship, is contained in the client files, and its disclosure might be embarrassing or likely to be detrimental to the client. The material revealed by Gonzalez in this case falls well within this standard. Gonzalez argues that he was obliged to disclose the information at issue because, under local court practice, his motion to withdraw would otherwise have been denied. This contention is somewhat undermined by Gonzalez' inability, at oral argument, to cite any authority for, or to identify a single concrete example of, the purported local practice to which he alluded. [9] In any event, we agree with the Board that Gonzalez could have submitted his documentation in camera, and that he could also have made appropriate redactions of the material most potentially damaging to his clients ( e.g., his allegations that A.A. had misrepresented facts to him and his suggestion, in one of the letters, that a demand of $90,000 by the plaintiffs in the underlying litigation might be reasonable). As noted in Virginia's Ethical Consideration 2-41, [a] lawyer should not withdraw without considering carefully and endeavoring to minimize the possible adverse effect on the rights of his client and the possibility of prejudice to his client as a result of his withdrawal. Even when he justifiably withdraws, a lawyer should protect the welfare of his client by giving due notice of his withdrawal, suggesting employment of other counsel, delivering to the client all papers and property to which the client is entitled, cooperating with counsel subsequently employed, and otherwise endeavoring to minimize the possibility of harm. Va. S.Ct. Prof. Resp. Canons, EC 2-41 (Michie 1998) (emphasis added). Contrary to this admonition, Gonzalez revealed secret information about his clients in his motion to withdraw and in the attachments thereto, and he failed to take steps to minimize the possibility of harm. Finally, Gonzalez contends that the Board usurped the authority of the Hearing Committee by overruling what Gonzalez characterizes as the Committee's factual findings. Gonzalez points out, correctly, that the Committee heard live evidence and that the Board did not. In our view, however, the differences in analysis between the Board and the Committee relate exclusively to the legal consequences of essentially undisputed evidentiary facts. Gonzalez suggested at oral argument that the Board should have deferred to the Hearing Committee's views as to the purpose of DR 4-101(B)(1) and as to the type of information that constitutes a client's secret, but these are not issues of evidentiary fact, and no deference to the Committee was owed by the Board. We recognize, as did the Board, that if his substantive complaints against A.A. and her company were warranted, then Gonzalez faced a difficult situation. But Bar Counsel and the Board have both recommended an informal admonition, the least severe of the available sanctions. No party has sought, and we are not disposed to impose, any sterner discipline. We have no doubt that Gonzalez revealed his client's secrets, and an appropriate (if relatively modest) sanction is called for. Accordingly, Bar Counsel is hereby directed to issue an informal admonition to Gonzalez. So ordered.