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The Dimensions of Lawyer-Client Relations: Notes Toward a Theory and a Field Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

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Abstract

Recent research on lawyer-client relations has called into question the traditional image of the lawyer as the autonomous professional. This research note reviews this research and proposes a three-dimensional framework for interpreting lawyer-client relationships. The utility of the framework is illustrated using data collected through interviews with corporate lawyers and their clients in Toronto.

Type
Research Note
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 1984 

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References

1 Brazil, Wayne D., The Adversary Character of Civil Discovery: A Critique and Proposals for Change, 31 Vand. L. Rev. 1295(1978); Simon, William H., The Ideology of Advocacy: Procedural Justice and Professional Ethics, 1978 Wis. L. Rev. 29.Google Scholar

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3 Talcutt Parsons, The Law and Social Control, in William M. Evan, ed., Law and Sociology (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1962); Erwin O. Smigel, The Wall Street Lawyer (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1964); but see Jerome E. Carlin, Lawyers on Their Own 184–200(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1962).Google Scholar

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8 John P. Heinz, The Power of Lawyers, 17 Ga. L. Rev. 891 (1983), citing Robert L. Nelson, Practice and Privilege: The Social Organization of Large Law Finns (unpublished Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1983) (forthcoming as Ideology, Practice, and Professional Autonomy: Social Value and Client Relationships in the Large Law Firm, Stanford L. Rev.); see also Nelson, Practice and Privilege: Social Change and the Structure of Large Law Firms, 1981 A.B.F. Res. J. 95.Google Scholar

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11 This notion of lawyer dominance was also an underlying theme in Rosenthal's important study, supra note 4, of lawyerclient relations. His findings are consistent with Hosticka's argument, supra note 10, that the lawyer tends to dominate the interaction. Rosenthal emphasized the importance of client control as a means of overcoming the lawyer's dominance. Likewise, Hosticka argues that it is the most persistent clients who receive the greatest attention from legal services lawyers; see also Carrie Menkel-Meadow & Robert G. Meadow, Resource Allocation in Legal Services: Individual Attorney Decisions in Work Priorities, 5 Law & Pol'y Q. 237 (1983).Google Scholar

12 Maureen, Cain, The General Practice Lawyer and the Client: Towards a Radical Conception, 7 Intern. J. of the Sociology of L. 331 (1979).Google Scholar

13 Id. at 343.Google Scholar

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16 In a factor analytic sense, one would think of the dimensions as oblique rather than as orthogonal.Google Scholar

17 Richard, Wasserstrom, Lawyers as Professionals: Some Moral Issues, 5 Hum. Rts. 1, 1617 (1975).Google Scholar

18 Abraham S. Blumberg, The Practice of Law as Confidence Game: Organizational Cooptation of a Profession, 1967 Law & Soc'y Rev. 15. This seminal study of lawyer-client interaction in the context of plea bargaining essentially argues that the business dimension of the relationship is uppermost in the lawyer's mind in dealing with the client, at least until the client has paid the lawyer's fee.Google Scholar

19 Cf. Nelson, Ph.D. diss., supra note 8, at 306–7.Google Scholar

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22 I had originally hoped to conduct the research in England, but circumstances did not cooperate with those plans.Google Scholar

23 The term taxed is a term of art in the Ontario system. Essentially it means to set the fee at a level consistent with an existing, albeit fuzzy, standard.Google Scholar

24 Fin. Post 500, June 1982, at 161.Google Scholar

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26 The numbers in parentheses following each of the quotes are my interview identification numbers. The letters that follow the interview numbers indicate the position occupied by the respondent: L–-large-firm lawyer, M–-medium-size-firm lawyer, S–-small-firm laywer, I–-inside lawyer. C–-corporate official, R–-legal affairs reporter.Google Scholar

27 To some degree, the business dimension of the relationship simply reflects the need of the corporate client to conduct its affairs in a businesslike manner. This showed up in several of the interviews in references to the clients' need to be able to attribute their outside legal fees to “cost centers” within the corporation:Google Scholar

I have never had a client question a bill personally except for requests for information to allow the client to allocate to cost centers. (5s–I.)Google Scholar

Clients have a growing need to attribute everything to cost centers. (24-L)Google Scholar

28 Nick Galluccio, The Rise of the Company Lawyer, Forbes, Sept. 18, 1978, at 168.Google Scholar

29 Interestingly, the representative of one of the companies that I contacted reported that it was the outside lawyer who had “suggested hiring a young lawyer in-house to handle routine matters as a way of saving money.” (57-C)Google Scholar

30 Previous research has shown the status differential that exists between in-house and outside corporate lawyers. See Jeffrey S. Slovak, Giving and Getting Respect: Prestige and Stratification in a Legal Elite, 1980 A.B.F. Res. J. 31. This was borne out in the comments of a number of my respondents:Google Scholar

As an inside lawyer I have to convince people that I am not a second class lawyer. (58–1)Google Scholar

People in house-counsel positions are not necessarily the brightest, most up-to-date people. (51-L)Google Scholar

31 Interestingly, only one respondent reported that a concern about potential conflicts arising from the presence of outside counsel on the board of directors led to a change of law firms:Google Scholar

We changed law firms because of the potential conflict of interest arising from the presence of a senior partner from the old firm sitting on the board of directors. (14-C)Google Scholar

32 In a certain sense, one might argue that it is the routinization of the unusual that marks the professional's craft. You go to a medical specialist not so much because you expect a unique solution for your medical problem but because you hope that for the specialist your problem is relatively routine. This is most clear in the area of surgery; one wants a surgeon who has done the operation many times before, not one for whom the surgery represents a new challenge (though in some very unusual situations, there may be no surgeon for whom the operation is “routine”).Google Scholar

33 Cf. Nelson, Ph.D. diss., supra note 8, at 317–18: “The vast majority of tasks which lawyers in these [large corporate] firms are called on to perform involve legal technical questions among parties of roughly equal status and resources. In the preparation of securities offerings, in arranging a leverage leasing transaction, in planning an estate, lawyers are not called on to deal with questions of good and evil (beyond considerations of simple honesty which pervade all human affairs).”Google Scholar