Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California
Does "Litigation Privilege" fully protect any attorney from making any kind of statements during the course of any litigation, even if they are illegal threats, lies, profanity, yelling, misleading statements, fraudulent/deceiving statements? Could they still be sued for violation of professional conduct? ethics violations?
1 Answer from Attorneys
The litigation privilege is extraordinarily broad, and bars almost any type of civil lawsuit except for malicious prosecution. If an attorney's conduct violates the rules of professional conduct, that is a matter for the State Bar in a disciplinary action and/or a matter of sanctions in the pending litigation.
The litigation privilege also would not bar criminal prosecution if the conduct were so extreme as to merit it.
Note that a party cannot sue an opposing party's lawyer simply because he or she feels that lawyer has violated the rules of profesional conduct.
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