This Is Just Between Us

Everybody tired of worrying about Ike? Me, too. Now, we get to worry about whether all of our neighbors to the south will have clean water, food, medical care and shelter and otherwise if there will any kind of humanitarian aid to help them out. Anyway...I am not here to plead the causes of Caribbean nations in need. There are plenty of websites and blogs for that. We're apolitical here. That said, now I feel a need to check out some sources of help and maybe I'll pass them on to you.

For now, let's talk about one of the few bastions of confidentiality - the settlement communication. Just so you know, communications made by you and your attorney in an effort to avoid or settle a lawsuit or legal dispute are confidential. The communications themselves and their contents cannot be used against you as evidence.

Why? So that there is free exchange of information and ideas that allows the party to properly decide whether to settle and to identify the terms of such settlement. This is important because you want to be able to discuss the issues of a case, evaluate the evidence and even identify the shortcomings in your own case. A good and honest evaluation of a matter may be just the thing the parties need to get a case over and done with - and anything you can do to save on attorneys' fees is a good thing.

For instance, it can be useful to fess up to the other side that you know witness X will hurt your claim, but that proving it at trial will be costly and time consuming. You could never tell the other side that you think you're own witness is lousy if there was a chance that such communication could be used against you at trial. Imagine the opening statement that includes "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, even the defendant's lawyer thinks witness X is not credible. He told me so himself." Case closed, malpractice insurance carrier notified.

So, tomorrow I'm either going to discuss qualified immunity as it relates to statements made as part of a legal proceeding or provide you with information about humanitarian aid. See what you've done?