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Hey everybody it’s Guardian Mike here.
"Why am I in the waiting room?"
This is a topic, where professionalism, ethics comes together and you’re upset.
You’ve gone, you;ve taken an aging parent, you’re a boomer, and you’ve taken them
to the lawyer.
The lawyer that they used all of their life were a new lawyer.
Mom and dad's there, they walk in with a walker, the lawyer greets them, you drove
them there and you’re going to pay for the legal services bill, and the lawyer says,
“Please have a seat in the waiting room”.
We are already off to a bad start, let me explain that, I'm going to unbundle that and I’m
going to let you know why that is something that is taken place, it might be not a bad thing
but a good thing.
But first of all, I have for you: “Why am I left waiting in a waiting room?”
(don’t take me here, come up here) Ms. Seppy can you give them link to that?
I will get that for you, it’s right there, it’s another ABA product and maybe, maybe
I should not have approached the camera and just took a snap chat out of it.
“Why am I left in a waiting room?”
It’s an ABA free download and it explains the ethics, okay? it explains why you might want to be
be in that waiting room because if mom and dad are planning to do sign documents: a will,
a trust, Powers of Attorney, and they’re going to put you in a position of power or
give you a gift or benefit.
One of the reasons to set that aside in a legal theory is in capacity.
Mom and dad went beyond of theory in capacity and when we have documents that are robust
and strong otherwise legal, such as a will that gives you all the oil wells in Texas.
When we have an otherwise legal document that’s valid it can be set aside for undue influence.
We can take an otherwise, good document away from undue influence and you being in that
room and the lawyer asking questions.
“So, mom, what do you think the name of the President?” and you popped up with the
answer.
“So, mom do you know where you are doing the baking?” and you answered the
question and you began to control the meeting and you began to say, “ You know this is what mom
and dad want: they want me to have the oil wells in Texas” Not a good thing, now, remember
there’s documents and recordings going on and you’re setting a record and right away
the lawyer is going to do some work and you’re in the office and you’re creating the worst
case scenario and if mom and dad want to help you for someone else to attack the document.
And, someone else could be in the family and more and more is that happening could be the
government, the Attorney General coming in because they want mom and dad’s funds, and
they want to use mom and dad’s funds, and they want to impoverish mom and dad and then and
only then can you get access to government funding.
That’s the thought process and they might want to, it’s called Medicaid recovery.
There’s many issues out there, it’s kind of thorny, like a porcupine, you’re in the
waiting room for a reason.
Get the document, take a look at that, this is just a little bit of short synopsis to
help you deal with lawyers.
Don’t get angry, okay?
Don’t get angry.
Now, either a rough idea of what mom and dad want to do and if you act soon, mom’s and
dad’s, if you act soon when your lights are not flickering.
It’s better than when your lights are not flickering than when they’re out because you create
circumstances that makes it very difficult and it maybe when the lawyer has to take extraordinary
circumstances to protect mom and dad.
“Why am I in the waiting room?”
That’s one reason why you are in the waiting room.
There’s another reason why you are in a waiting room and this has to do with.
This is for lawyers to keep it mind, how do I say this?
Okay, if I am talking to a client and I’m a lawyer, that client has a lawyer-client
privilege which is a rule of evidence and that client, client has the right to have confidence
and secrets captive by the lawyer, confidences and secrets, the lawyer keeps those confidences
and secrets.
So, if you’re in that room, a third, somebody else besides the clients in that room.
You run the risk that you’ve given up the rule of evidence.
Lawyer-client privileged because the clients don’t have expectancy the rule of privacy
because they invited the whole world there.
And, you run the risk, there’s still confidences and secrets.
The lawyer can’t start talking about all your business and that’s client confidentiality
and secrets and if somebody challenged and there’s somebody in there and the lawyer
is subpoenaed by and ordered by court to divulge what’s going on there.
The rules of privilege will allow him to remain silent but if somebody else’s is in the
room.
Then, you give up that powerful, powerful privilege, now there’s exception to that
rule beyond what we’re talking about here.
But, if you are a lawyer listening you know the exceptions and rules.
You might need an interpreter and that interpreter might be because it’s foreign language interpreter,
might be a deaf interpreter; also, you might need an account and there to interpret financial
information.
But, if the persons there is not just there hanging around but they’re there to help
the relationship that might give you a little bit of a leg to hang on to keep intact that
powerful, powerful rule of evidence of lawyer-client privilege.
The rule of evidence is different from the lawyer confidences and secrets which is rule
of ethics, you got that?
The rule of ethics – confidences and secrets which are sacred.
The lawyer has an ethical obligation.
An ethical obligation is like the basement, the professional obligations are little bit
higher than that.
So, a lawyer who is not only a ethical but also professional and know this; I kind of
ethically, delicately tell you as to why you are in a waiting room because they want to
preserve a client confidence and secrets which is professional, ethical obligation and they
also want to preserve the evidentiary privileges and secrets.
No, I can’t talk about this in court because this is a client-privileged, no I can’t
talk about it because the evidentiary rule of privilege.
Attorney-client privilege, okay?
This is not a law school course.
I just want to let you know, don’t just jump to conclusions that you’re out in that
waiting room for no reason, check out that link.
Sep, if there’s one, maybe we kind of get them the PDF link?
“Yes” Seppy says we can.
Alright, thank you, we are going to move on.