Case: Lawyers and Clients

During the winter, many people began to use the block long corridor of a private college as a shortcut to get from a metro station to an office building.  The amount of traffic became so enormous and cumbersome that the college procured an ordinance from the city council stipulating that anyone using the corridor without having specific college business was trespassing. Signs to that effect were posted.

After the ordinance was in effect, Nancy Crane, who had nothing to do with the college and was simply on her way to work, walked through the corridor, fell, and seriously injured herself.  Her lawyer, Ellen Jones, tells her that trespassers do not usually recover damages for accidents on private property. On the other hand, if she had been in the college for business reasons, even to ask about the time of an event, she would have a good chance of recovering damages.

1. Is the lawyer inviting Crane to lie?
2. How should Jones proceed with this case, what questions should she ask of Crane, and how should she counsel Crane?
3. May lawyers advice clients in distinguishing between truths appropriate for them to tell and others that they have no obligation to tell?
4. How do you judge formulations of statements which are not strictly lies but whose purpose is to deceive?
5. What is the responsibility of Jones, as an officer of the court, regarding perjury?
6. If Crane lies to the court, who is responsible?
7. What is the relationship between clients and their lawyers? What are the ethical obligations of both in preparing a case?

(adapted from Difficult Moral Questions by Germain Grisez, 1997)

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