[conspire] On communication with lawyers

[Rick Moen]

I belatedly remembered something I was going to tie in, to that -- which
certainly would have been better if I'd remembered it _then_, but I'll
try to pick up the thread.

(Aside:  You might be ignoring this thread on ground of 'I'll never have
to have dealings with lawyers.'  Mistake.  You may anyway at various
points in your life, and should know the ropes.)


Deirdre told me an anecdote about a friend, female, who a while back was
called by another person, female, in the latter's domestic abuse case
against her husband.  The friend was scheduled to be called as a
plaintiff's witness, and intended to tell the truth that she never
actually personally witnessed the claimed abusive activity, because --
obviously -- she would be testifying under oath.  She didn't doubt the
abuse existed; she just hadn't witnessed it.  And so, being mindful and
a good friend, she carefully warned the person and the person's lawyer,
in advance, of what she'd be saying on the witness stand.  Yet, they
still scheduled her to speak.

Deirdre's friend had an apparently well-founded fear of ostracism from
the relevant social circle, because everyone expected her to support the
wife, so she expected they'd ostracise her if she didn't agree to be a
witness, and that they'd also ostracise her if she testified and told
the truth.  Put bluntly, they seriously expected her to perjure herself
as a moral obligation.  (I hear claims that this expectation is common
in some social circles, especially as an expectation put on women to
'support' other women by lying -- even under _oath_, which would be
reckless indeed, and not something a rational person should be willing
to do.  What did she do?  She told the truth -- being no fool.)

Here's one thing to note:  Perjury is one of the most serious own-goals
an adult can commit in our society, and clueful people go to some
_serious_ lengths to avoid it.  Lawyers go to _extreme_ lengths to avoid
it.  For them, it would be not just a felony conviction with up to a
five-year prison sentence but also getting disbarred -- shut out of
their profession.

 
Some years ago, I saw a really wonderful two-hour PBS historical
retrospective: 'Watergate Plus 30:  Shadow of History'.  You can watch
it here (Adobe Flash):
https://webertube.com/video/27836/watergate-plus-30

You see speaking on-screen just about every surviving player in the
Watergate drama, and footage and anecdotes about everyone including the
many who are now dead.  Here you had insiders who were at and near the
pinnacle of national political power, and one recurring theme was that
they confessed that they'd been deathly afraid of committing perjury.
Much of the 1973-4 maneouvering was all about trying to not end up on
the witness stand needing to decide whether to tell what they knew
honestly if asked, or not.

As I stressed upthread, lawyers as a general class have many ways to 
be deceptive that fall short of actual lying, e.g., selective omission,
misrepresentation through interpretation, deliberately bad logic,
misdirection, innuendo, and so on -- that might annoy a judge or
Congressional committee but wouldn't rise to the level of perjury.  In
that case, they were extremely worried about being interrogated under
oath by sharp _lawyers_ able to grope through any generated fog of
deceit and misdirection.  As one of them commented in the documentary,
'Everybody headed for cover.'


And the other important thing to note:  Anything said _not_ under oath 
is an entirely, dramatically different story.  I'm looking right now at
a paper copy of The Letter from the lawyer-as-trustee's lawyer, for
example, and there are some truly ballsy outright lies in it.  
_This is fair play._  If I _believe_ the manipulative and flagrant
bullshit, his client wins.  If I _don't_, nothing lost, except postage.

And this is absolutely, totally common, an everyday occurrence, in
dealings with lawyers, but it's so _weird_ that you might not expect
it, and keep expecting to have a normal conversation, the way you do
every day with human beings who aren't lawyers.


To recap:

You cannot have a normal conversation with a (someone else's) lawyer.
That lawyer doesn't care what you think.
There's no percentage in arguing, as it's a fool's errand to convince him/her.
That lawyer will not answer your questions, unless there's an advantage.
That lawyer cannot be subjected to embarrassment.
There will be _no_ normal give and take (because, no normal conversation).
That lawyer will never explain.  If he/she does, you can't trust that.
Venting anger is a waste of time, and may lead you to say something foolish.
Unless under oath, that lawyer will lie, distort, misrepresent, etc., freely.
If asked to sign something, consider what you're losing, what you're getting.
  (The safest default is 'I'm not touching this', when in doubt.)
Remember that you're being treated as an enemy, irrespective of courtesy.
And never, ever lie under oath.