Legal Question in Technology Law in Arizona

Re: Is it considered 'unsolicited' when a potential client sends info to an inte

The privilege of confidentiality attaches only after the lawyer-client relationship has been clearly established.

Re: Is it considered 'unsolicited' when a potential client sends info to an inte

Mr. Aspinwall's answer is generally correct, though the relationship need not be "clearly estaqblished" if a reasonable person in the prospective client's position would expect confidentiality.

Attorneys are not drawn into a privileged attorney-client relationship by unsolicited emails (or unsolicited letters, phone calls, etc.) because an attorney must be able to *decide* when to form such a relationship and when not to. If anybody who decided to write could force the attorney into such a relationship, she would have no way to avoid conflicts of interest.

(I think it goes without saying that an attorney cannot be forced to *work* for someone without an agreement, but that is not quite the same issue.)

That said, an attorney who receives an unsolicited email, letter etc. seeking her services should not divulge any confidential information it contains unless there is some strong reason to do so. The problem is that there actually will be such strong reasons relatively often.

If a lawyer receives such an email and finds its contents useful to an existing client, her duty would require her to share the information with the client. If she had to keep her mouth shut to her client's detriment for the sake of the person who wrote, then she would have a serious conflict of interests -- and it would have been forced upon her rather than being the result of her own actions.

The law will not permit third parties to trap a lawyer this way, whether it is done intentionally or not. This is why writing to a lawyer does not unilaterally create an attorney-client relationship.