Legal Question in Real Estate Law in New Jersey
attorney client privilege
I have a simple question about client privilege. A quick summary is as follows:
We went to a lawyer based on our agent recommendation. We found out later they are good friends and fish together
Our initial closing on a house fell through and we decided on our own to go to small claims court (my wife and I) on the advice of the lawyer
We had two outstanding bills from the original closing and sued for relief at court. We then received damages as a settlement.
We emailed our lawyer to tell him we went to court and received damages and were sending the amount to him to disburse to the title agency and surveyor that were still owed.
A week later the real estate agent emailed asking for $150 for some septic retest he claims he did for us, that we never received any bill or invoice for, not even at the final closing.
We just received a ''refund'' for overpayment by our lawyer from the disbursement. On the bottom of the letter there was a ''CC'' to our agent, who was in no way involved in our small claims suit.
I think its obvious the lawyer is keeping the agent informed of our private suit to help him get some of the settlement. He never brought this $150 up before we notified the lawyer of our settlement. Is this breach?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: attorney client privilege
I think the bigger/better question is, did he in fact order the test on your behalf at your request, was the test actually completed, were you given the results and how much payment did you receive in damages? Either way, if the realtor wants to recoup his funds, he would have been better off letting you know from the beginning that there was an open invoice out there that was (possibly) your responsibility. He's not going to sue you for the $150.00 and it is not worth your time and effort going after the attorney for breach of the attorney-client confidentiality. You may, however, consider discussing this matter with the attorney and advising him that you would decline to use him or her in the future if he intends to inform others of what is going on with your matters. This was a matter of public record, so I don't know how "confidential" it was. Perhaps the realtor advised the attorney of the bill and it is the attorney who neglected to tell you of that invoice. Regardless, either pay the $150.00 or let it go after speaking to the attorney about it.
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