Nature of attorney-client relationship
He is to forever keep inviolate his
1. Locatio conduction operarum (contract
of lease of services) – where one
person lets his services for
compensation and another hires them
without reference to the object which the
services are to be performed.
2. Mandato (contact of agency) – whereby
a friend on whom reliance could be
places makes a contract in his name but
gives up all that he grained by the
contract to the person who requested
him.
Relation as strictly personal:
1. It involves mutual trust and confidence
of the highest degree irrespective of
whether the client is a private person or
a government functionary.
2. The personal character of the relation
prohibits its delegation in favour of
another attorney without the client’s
consent.
3. A client can terminate it at any time with
or without cause.
4. Only a proper sense of vicarious
detachment will enable the attorney to
adequately serve the interest of his
client and to keep his professional
conduct within ethical bounds. For this
reason, it is advisable for a lawyer, who
is a party litigant, not to appear for
himself not act as counsel for a close
relative. He can ask another lawyer who
can act with more detachment and with
less emotional involvement to undertake
the active prosecution.
Relation as fiduciary and confidential:
1. The relation of attorney and client is
highly fiduciary in nature and of a very
delicate, exacting and confidential
character.
2. The exacting responsibilities of an
attorney to his client should however be
reconciled with his duties to the court of
which he is an officer, to the bar of
which he is a member and to the public
of which he is very much a part.
3. Rules protective of relation:
a. He is to exert his best effort and
learning in the protection of the
interest of his client
b. He is not to purchase or acquire any
property or interest of his client in
litigation
c.
client’s secrets or confidence and
not to abuse them;
d. He is not to represent a party whose
interest is adverse to that of his
client even after the termination of
the relation.
Concept of term retainer
1. The relation of attorney and client
begins from the time an attorney is
retained.
2. Retainer – the act of a client by which
he engages the services of an attorney
to render legal advice, or to defend or
prosecute his cause in court.
3. Two concepts of retainer:
a. General retainer – one the purpose
of which is to secure beforehand the
services of an attorney for any legal
problem that may afterward arise.
b. Special retainer – has reference to a
particular case or service.
4. Retainer – may also refer to the fee
which a client pays to an attorney when
the latter is retained, known as standing
fee. It is a preliminary fee paid to insure
and secure his future services, to
renumerate him for being deprived, by
being retained by one party, of the
opportunity of rendering services to the
other party and of receiving pay from
him, and the payment of such fee, in the
absence of an agreement to the
contrary, is neither made nor received in
consideration of the services
contemplated.
5.