Caveats when giving legal advice

[shockthemonkey]

I know it's a no-no, but a friend's son is doing an internship in a law firm and one of the partners has been asked to provide informal legal advice as a friend in a very specialised area of the law where he is not fully competent.

Of course he shouldn't really touch this with a barge pole, but he's prepared his advice and he's looking for the best wording to put at the end - basically to say this is provided as a friend and I urge you to seek properly qualified counsel specialising in the area before you act on it.

In French he would put "j'insiste sur la nature amicale de ces conseils". Is there some kind of formal wording in English that he could use?

I have vague memories of doing a similar exercise on work experience- it was just to see what my research & drafting skills were like and it kept me out of the way for a few hours!

I can't imagine for a moment that a partner would put their reputation and insurance at risk by signing and sending out something unchecked & written by an unqualified student.

@AtillatheHun You clearly have no experience with law firms. ALL (decent) law firms delegate from partner level to juniors because otherwise the client will be paying astronomical fees (even more than they already are) if everything was done by partners!

@Notonthestairs That is also true. Interns are a pain to keep busy!

I’m really surprised people are finding this scenario so incredible!

Partner: can you please draft a note of advice on X for me to review. It’s for a friend and not my area of expertise so we ought to include some wording to that effect.

Intern: I wonder what wording I should use, is there something formal? I know, I’ll ask [OP] - maybe they have come across something like this before in their translation work.

OP: hmm, I know what this would be in french but not in English. I’ll ask on mumsnet since it doesn’t cost me anything and I might just get lucky with a poster who knows the answer.

All perfectly normal, no…?

@RiversideAnne 😂

@RiversideAnne

I’m really surprised people are finding this scenario so incredible!

Partner: can you please draft a note of advice on X for me to review. It’s for a friend and not my area of expertise so we ought to include some wording to that effect.

Intern: I wonder what wording I should use, is there something formal? I know, I’ll ask [OP] - maybe they have come across something like this before in their translation work.

OP: hmm, I know what this would be in french but not in English. I’ll ask on mumsnet since it doesn’t cost me anything and I might just get lucky with a poster who knows the answer.

All perfectly normal, no…?

Well except for the bit where the intern has asked for external, informal advice on work he's been given to do. Unless the partner is aware he's asked OP for help (including with the translation) it's a major breach of confidentiality by the intern! Even the fact that he's been given this task to do is confidential.

I echo others though - sounds like busy work to me. I'm not saying it's impossible that it's for real but I don't know many lawyers willing to put advice done as a favour in writing! Certainly not in a formal memo.

Quite a lot actually, @XelaM, thankfully none low rent enough to be advising on areas where they lack competence and rely on the intern’s mum’s friend. I don’t seek to train interns or trainees on areas I have no knowledge of.

Unless the partner is aware he's asked OP for help (including with the translation) it's a major breach of confidentiality by the intern!

No it’s not. It’s very obviously not a breach of confidentiality to say ‘have you ever come across formal wording to indicate that advice is being given on an informal basis and shouldn’t be relied upon?’.

It’s also not a breach of confidentiality to say ‘I have been asked to prepare a note of advice’.

I didn’t suggest that the intern has asked OP for help with any translation. But OP mentioned that she is a translator, and her knowledge of the french term indicated in her OP suggests that she sometimes translates legal documents. It’s therefore not particularly surprising to me that the intern might have wondered if she knew of any boilerplate language that would serve in the note he was preparing.

Sound like a very dodgy law firm. I work with lawyers and this seems very far removed from good practice.

*unless the intern’s Mum’s friend is a silk at Blackstone and is formally engaged and paid for their advice obv
Intern knowing his friend’s mum is a translator and asking for UK legal terminology? Not such stellar initiative

The OP know much more about it than that though and says it's come to her in the context of her being a translator. She knows it's a very specific highly specialised area of law (and I'm assuming knows which area), that it's for a friend of the partner and that it's outside the partner's area of expertise. Absolutely a breach of confidentiality. Maybe not client confidentiality (depending on what's being said) but the firm's confidentiality.

@AtillatheHun

*unless the intern’s Mum’s friend is a silk at Blackstone and is formally engaged and paid for their advice obv Intern knowing his friend’s mum is a translator and asking for UK legal terminology? Not such stellar initiative

No, perhaps not. But I haven’t met many interns who know exactly what to do on all occasions from day one.

Anyway - my point wasn’t that I think the intern has had a stroke of genius in solving this problem. I was simply pointing out that I don’t think the scenario is remotely incredible or unusual, and I think some posters are being daft - or perhaps naive - to think that this is something that couldn’t possible occur in a reputable law firm, or that the story isn’t true. I’ve been an intern and a trainee, and I’ve trained several interns and trainees myself, and I’m not remotely incredulous at this scenario.

@VanCleefArpels

I can understand it as a topic of conversation but to then go on the internet to ask a bunch of strangers for a form of wording goes into the realms of ridiculous micro management

Agreed this thread is absolutely fucking hatstand.

If someone approaches you with a query about an area of law you are not experienced in you pass it to a colleague or contact who does have that expertise, not the the blummin' intern!
Dabblers are bastards

@Luobogao

The OP know much more about it than that though and says it's come to her in the context of her being a translator. She knows it's a very specific highly specialised area of law (and I'm assuming knows which area), that it's for a friend of the partner and that it's outside the partner's area of expertise. Absolutely a breach of confidentiality. Maybe not client confidentiality (depending on what's being said) but the firm's confidentiality.

Again, no.

‘I’ve been asked by a partner to draft a note of advice on a really specialised area of law. The partner doesn’t practice in this area so I need to include wording to the effect that the advice is given as a friend and shouldn’t be relied upon. Have you ever come across any wording like this?’

Point out where in that sentence there’s anything that could constitute a breach of confidentiality?

And what do you mean by ‘firm confidentiality’? That’s not a term I’ve ever come across in my career. Is it something your firm uses? Perhaps your firm has specific rules that prohibit any mention of work to those outside the firm?

Obviously I have no idea what the intern actually said to OP. Maybe they spoke about the work in great detail and did breach confidentiality. But it’s equally possible that they asked the question in sufficiently general terms, as above, that nothing confidential has been shared.

@RiversideAnne You are mistaken if yiundk not think there are tasks given to interns to test their knowledge and understanding especially of professional ethics. They are often set to see whether their level of understanding is where it should be. We often set a test piece of research which we know the answer to in order to see whether and how they get to the expected result. Summer internships often lead to offers of training contracts and if it is clear that the intern does not have a basic grasp of what is allowed there may be a discussion with them.

It does remain the case that advice given as a friend on an unpaid basis if negligent will lead to a valid claim against them. That is why ask non practising solicitor I would never go down that route as obviously I would not be insured. If you believe this untrue I would ask you to cite the case law that has changed this position.

The point being that no caveat nor disclaimer can preclude the potential claim.

I think the intern is struggling. They will be supervised. Drafting docs is norm, they will have the advice given to them it’s just they need to write it up. The qualified lawyer will read and make changes if necessary,

Is the intern too embarrassed to say to the qualified lawyer he doesn’t know how to write it so is asking you?

It's possible that he couched it that generically but the OP says "one of the partners has been asked to provide informal legal advice as a friend in a very specialised area of the law where he is not fully competent." which is not the same as what you've suggested was said - it involves a comment on the partner's competency.

I confused by how you haven't heard of the idea of firm confidentiality? There are professional duties of confidentiality owed to clients but there is also more general business confidentiality which applies to a law firm as much as any other business. I can't think of any business that would not consider the disclosure to a third party that a senior manager was not competent at some of the work they were doing confidential information! Maybe not a sackable offense but a black mark certainly. It would raise fundamental concerns about the interns ability to keep his mouth shut on client work as well.

Although I share the view that it is normal to ask an intern to prepare an advice note and of course nothing close to what the intern is preparing will go anywhere near the friend/client, even if the whole thing isn't just made up busy work.

It doesn’t sound like OP has been told anything specific to the case and is basically just looking for the equivalent of ‘j'insiste sur la nature amicale de ces conseils".’

I’m not a lawyer but I’d imagine they would use something along the lines of ‘for information purposes only - not intended to be legal advice’

Thank you for all the very sensible and reasoned advice.

For the more excitable ones among you, no, I have no idea about which area of the law, which partner, which client, nothing at all - the intern is extremely tight-lipped about this as he of course should be.

He literally wanted to find the best English word for "amicale" and I was not sure that "friendly" would work in the context. He gave not an iota more of the context than what I have shared on here, therefore no breach of confidentiality. People in a position to know (RiversideAnne et al) have calmly pointed out that the situation I have described is a frequent practice in law firms.

I don't think it should come as a shock that an unnamed lawyer in an unnamed firm is not an expert in an unnamed field of the law. This kind of information, so anonymous, removed and everyday, is not going to harm anyone's reputation.

To answer another point, I don't think the intern is struggling, he's just keen to make a good impression. Of course his work will be carefully checked, but, as a young and keen intern, he wants to produce the best work he can, and asked me to translate "amicale"... because the fewer changes the partner makes to his work, the better the intern will feel.

And yes, a lot of this situation is about keeping the intern busy!

I really appreciate everyone's advice and have found many of the comments interesting.

Ah so the intern didn't tell you "one of the partners has been asked to provide informal legal advice as a friend in a very specialised area of the law where he is not fully competent." and you don't know the name of the firm? If so, I agree no breach of confidentiality but I'm confused why you said it in the first place if you didn't know it to be true!

OP never said she knows which law form or which partner or which specialised area of law, @Luobogao .

Fair enough - maybe he hasn't told her where he's working. OP didn't say he hadn't said that though (she specifically now said he hadn't named the partner or area of law) and it's normal conversation!

What has happened is he's told a third party that a partner at the firm he's working with is providing negligent advice. If he has managed to do that completely anonymously then he's ok. If he has named the firm then if he were my intern I wouldn't be recommending him for hire unless he was otherwise outstanding. Of course the firm probably won't find out!