This one really troubled me, because it reinforces a public misunderstanding about lawyer ethics and one that many lawyers don’t understand either. [The first two installments of this limited Ethics Alarms series are here and here.]

In Season Two of “The Lincoln Lawyer,” Mickey represented a seductive restaurant owner (above) who was accused of murdering a local real estate developer with whom she had been in conflict.

Sidebar: Mickey had intimate relations with the woman immediately prior to her being arrested and retaining him s her attorney. Not afterwards, however, because it is an ethics violation in most states to have sex with your client. Some randy lawyers have had ethics complaints dismissed by proving that they had already been making whoopee with the client, so the usual reasons for the prohibition no longer applied.

That may be true, but I regard it as unethical (and stupid) for a lawyer to ever represent a client with whom he or she has had…or even wants to have..sexual relations. The restaurant owner was obviously using her lawyer’s attraction to her to cloud his judgment.