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The essence of attorney/client privilege is to protect a
client's right to seek and secure legal representation for ethical
business dealings. Even if a client seeks legal representation
for ethical reasons, and the attorney later learns of unethical
dealings on the part of his client, he is still covered under the
attorney client privilege. (Note: Not everything conveyed by a
client to an attorney is immune from compelled disclosure in
civil litigation or from a Grand Jury subpoena in the criminal
context.) There are many communications that clients and at-
torneys would like to believe are privileged, and in fact are
not.
The privilege, however, does not protect all communica-
tions under an attorneys control. Compelled disclosure in liti-
gation happens more frequently than many people realize. It
is an attorney's duty to know the parameters of the privilege
and protect what would otherwise have to be disclosed. A
skilled lawyer, though, can uncover communications that were
meant to be hidden.
The rule that places the seal of secrecy on communications
between client and attorney is the necessity, in the interest and
administration of justice, of the aid of persons having knowl-
edge of the law and skilled in its practice, which assistance can
only be safely and readily availed of when free from the con-
sequences or the apprehension of disclosure. Hunt v.
Blackburn, 128 U.S. 464, 470 (1888).
The protection granted to the attorney/client relationship
is based upon the assumption that lawyers are consulted for
the purpose of ethical and legal activity, rather than to devise
means to break the law. When the fundamental trust that soci-
ety places in lawyers is breached so, too, is the protection that
the attorney/client privilege affords. The attorney-client privi-
lege was designed to facilitate the administration of justice,
not to thwart it.
The focus of the exception is on the client's intentions when
legal counsel was sought. In other words, what was his mo-
tive for seeking legal representation. Was it for bonafide legal
reasons? Or were his intentions fraudulent?

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