Michael Clayton: Attorney Client Privilege

It is a plot line that seemed to come straight out of a John Grisham novel. After all it had all the major elements: a conspiracy, a corrupt corporation, but most importantly a lawyer examining his inner conscience only to decide to break with the status quo and expose his corporate masters. In fact, one could say that the film Michael Clayton (2007), was a modern day John Grisham film that never was. In all certainty, Michael Clayton is a typical Hollywood movie with a typical Hollywood ending where good defeats evil and where truth prevails over obfuscation.That does not mean that it should be dismissed so readily however. The film Michael Clayton still raises many of the ethical questions within the legal profession. Namely, the film explores the concept of the Attorney Client Privilege, and through its plot and rich storyline, questions the very notion of it. However, it is easy to forget that the film is a pure work of fiction; and although it does a adequate job of pointing out the disadvantages of the Attorney Client Privilege, its assertion that the privilege should be eroded when the attorney knows that his or her client is lying, is just as phantasmal as the scenes are which are in the film.

“I’m not a miracle worker; I’m a janitor,” remarks Michael Clayton in one of the opening scenes of the film. An apt phrase because Clayton has been dispatched to rein in a fellow associate named Arthur Edens who is suffering from a manic breakdown—stripping off his clothes during the middle of a deposition and running around naked in the parking lot. Visiting Edens in jail after the incident, the sighs of the breakdown showed no sighs of subsiding. In the middle of a conversation with Clayton, Edens goes on a tirade, eventually aski...

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...t everyone has a job to do. Lawyers are—and should not be—an exception to that rule.

Works Cited

Freedman, Monroe H., and Abbe Smith. Understanding Lawyers' Ethics. New Providence, NJ: LexisNexis, 2010. Print.

Kairys, David. "Legal Education As Training For Hierarchy." The Politics of Law: a Progressive Critique. By Duncan Kennedy. New York: Basic, 1998. 54-75. Print.

Keefe, Patrick Radden. "Michael Clayton's Devastating Critique of the Legal Profession. - By Patrick Radden Keefe." Slate Magazine. Washington Post.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC, 19 Feb. 2008. Web. 10 Mar. 2011.

Shanahan, Sara Jane. "Another View: The Eroding Attorney-Client Privilege - NYTimes.com." NYTimes.com. The New York Times Company, 2 Nov. 2009. Web. 10 Mar. 2011.

Simon, David. "The Attorney-Cleint Privilege As Applied to Corporations." Yale Law Journal 65.7 (1956): 953-90. Print.