Georgia Divorce Attorney-Client Privilege Laws

So one of the most powerful tools that we have as lawyers in terms of talking with our clients is the attorney-client privilege. Because in a family law case, we’re all human and none of my clients ever has been or ever will be perfect. So I talk to all my clients about attorney-client privilege, because I need to know everything that’s going on, not just the good facts, but I also need to know the bad facts. There are bad facts out there that are bad facts in the world. I had a case one time where a client had gotten a sexually transmitted infection from his wife. Now, that’s a bad fact. But in this case, that was a very helpful bad fact. We call those good bad facts. It’s not good that it happened in the world, but it’s good in the sense that it’s helpful for our case.

Then there are bad bad facts. We’ve had clients who unfortunately have drug or alcohol addiction or have done regrettable things. But by knowing all of the facts, at that point, we can give good advice to our clients because we can take those bad facts and help a client get into a drug or alcohol rehabilitation program and improve those facts, and then the bad facts that are helpful, we can present those to the other side to get the case resolved to our client’s favor.

Attorney-client privilege is incredibly important for us to be able to do our job. I tell all my clients, if you only tell me the good things you’ve done in your life, I’m going to be the worst lawyer in the world for you. I got to know in a family law case not only all the good things about you, but I got to know the bad things too, because that way, we can give you good advice because no case is sort of unwinnable or irredeemable. Sure, bad choices are going to impact a case, but we can really take sometimes those bad facts and help a person not only improve their case, but if we give them good advice in a family law case, it can also improve their lives and their children’s lives.