Careful Watching (posted by Jessica)

Recently I was on a temporary assignment assisting a corporate attorney with a special project. The assignment served as a mini-refresher course on the importance of confidentiality and what the responsibility requires. Confidentiality is the way of life when you are in the legal field. This post will give you a first taste of this important topic, which you will learn indepth later in the course.

Lawyers have a duty to rigorously protect client information and prevent disclosure of that information to others. As paralegals we are under the authority of our supervising lawyer and have the same responsibility to the clients. The confidentiality rule requires you to practice extra caution. If you are an outgoing person you may need to change the way you go about life. It almost requires the mindset of a secret agent.

The first step on the path of confidentiality is correctly identifying who is the client. If your supervisor is representing an individual, than the client is that one person and does not include his relatives or friends. In the project I just completed the lawyer was working for a corporation. This was an interesting situation: the client was the corporate entity, not the necessarily the employees that work there. A corporation does not have a face or voice, so the executives in their official capacity as officers of the corporation serves as human representatives of the corporation but all other employees are usually considered separate parties.

There are many aspects to protecting client confidentiality.

1. Watch your conversation
It is normal in American society to talk about your job with family and friends. However in the law profession such talk could lead to a breach of confidentiality. You must train yourself not to discuss your work except in the most general terms even with close family. I am a very talkative person, so this is something I have to work hard on; I find the best thing for me is not to talk about work at all, rather than risk saying something I should not.

Example: In this sensitive assignment, my lawyer’s office was in the corporate building surrounded by the offices of regular employees. We had to be careful not to talk about the project unless the door was closed. Rather then going around and meeting and greeting everyone, I needed to somewhat isolate myself, to avoid the awkward situation of being buttonholed by someone wanting to ask what I was doing at the corporation and what my work involved. We also ended up avoiding the cafeteria at lunchtime and just taking our lunch back to the office. This probably sounds extreme, but sometimes duty requires unusual things.

2. Watch your papers
When working with documents you must be careful not to have them in plain sight if a non-client comes by. If you must step away from your desk, remember to put the papers in a drawer or lock the door, even if you will be gone only for a short time. When carrying papers around it is best to have them in an envelope or folder to prevent someone accidentally seeing what you are working on.

Example: The room I was working in did not have it’s own printer, so I would have to print to a machine in the copy room shared by the whole section. I would click the print button and then dash like mad to arrive at the machine before the pages finished printing, so unauthorized persons didn’t see or accidentally walk off with them. Earlier on in the project the confidentially rule led to an embarrassingly funny scenario. When I first started I was told the name of the executive that we were going to be working with, but he was not in yet. I printed off documents and was sorting them on my office table, when a man wandered by and then walked in and introduced himself by first name only. While shakily smiling and stuttering a greeting, I was also trying to flip the stacks of paper face down. He smiled and moved on, probably thinking I was an idiot. Later on I was to discover to my mortification that he was the executive and knew everything about the project anyway! However better safe than sorry.

3. Watch your computer.
Technology is the blessing and the curse of the legal profession. Computers and email help accomplish projects more efficiently but they also can be a danger to confidentially. Make sure your screen is not visible to visitors, and when absent from your desk you put the computer in a password-protected screensaver or sleepmode. It is essential to have passwords, firewalls and other hacker-preventing software to protect your files. When emailing, check and double-check that you are sending to the correct person and only that person (watch out for “reply to all”). Once you click “send”, it is too late. Label your computer documents “Legal and Confidential” or “Privileged” as part of the title.

A more recent issue in the legal field has to do with high tech software. If you email documents to the other party they can discover any changes or deletions. Or if you used an old document and wrote over it with the new client’s information, they can find the prior information as well. Any of these situations could be a breach of confidentiality. Find out if your firm has software to erase back history and also PDF your docs to prevent others from making changes.

Example: My computer had a problem, so I called the IT helpline hoping they could talk me through to a solution. I was surprised when the tech wanted to remote in and work on it himself. I had to decline because I was in the middle of working on sensitive material. Thankfully the Lord helped me mess around and find away to overcome the problem. No matter how urgent or bad the computer problem is, check with your lawyer before having IT work on it, as they may gain access to things that are protected by the confidentiality rule.

One of your most important responsibilities as a paralegal is to assist your lawyer in protected the confidentiality of the attorney-client relationship and the client’s information. Even if it means being thought strange!