Netflix’s “The Lincoln Lawyer” series has dropped its fourth season. This gave me an excuse to revisit the first three seasons of the legal show, based on the Matthew McConaughey film, itself based on Michael Connelly novels, about sketchy a Los Angeles criminal defense attorney whose office usthe backseat of a chauffeur-driven Lincoln Towncar. The series—it’s Netflix after all—has DEI’ed the story, with Micky Haller, the central character, being transformed into a Mexican-American who speaks Spanish frequently (though not as often as Bad Bunny) and is played by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, a Mexican actor who only plays Hispanic roles when he appears in U.S. movies and TV shows. He was, for example, the gratuitous Hispanic father in the ostentatiously “diverse” “Jurassic World” franchise addition last year (the worst of them all, in my opinion). That is not to say he isn’t an appealing, intelligent, entertaining leading man in “The Lincoln Lawyer.”
The show makes a point of highlighting legal ethics dilemmas, as Mickey habitually tightropes along ethical lines to zealously represent his clients. A fellow legal ethicist thinks the show is unusually good in this realm. I’m not quite so enthusiastic. I will examine some of the legal ethics dilemmas that surfaced in the first two seasons over the next couple days.
Today’s featured problem:
Ethics Alarms 
Did the actual murderer contract that Lawyer’s firm in bad faith to ethically trap the lawyer? Would such a scenario change the ethical duties involved?
Yeah he did, but had a colorable need for representation. His motive wouldn’t let the LL off the hook.
If only the lawyer can form client attorney relationship then if the admitted murderer got his timing wrong with engaging the lawyer, the lawyer could present that testimony and subpoena the man?
A local bank is the single biggest client of the law firm where I work, but bankruptcies are the most frequent type of case we handle for individuals, so the office manager and I are always checking the Documents folders on our computers to see if a defendant the bank wants us to proceed against was a bankruptcy client of ours. (Likewise, if we’re already representing the bank in a collection or foreclosure against a would-be client, the attorneys will tell them that we can’t represent the would-be client, whether as defense counsel in the collection or foreclosure, or as their bankruptcy attorney.) I’ve also overheard our attorneys telling clients in other types of cases that no, they can NOT represent both sides, no matter how well the first side to contact us gets along with the other side. Basic legal ethics and common sense!
Did they even address the conflict in that episode?
I don’t remember that episode but that is a surprisingly bad story (overall, I like the Lincoln Lawyer and can disregard the unrealistic legal elements). You could not get halfway through reading the standard rule on conflicts of interest without concluding this is not permitted. It’s not even plausible. Yet plausibility or “close calls” are what make for more interesting drama because it can reveal the character’s character. Here, he just looks like a bad lawyer who either did not know the rule, or simply decided to ignore it.
-Jut