Toward a Revised Model of Attorney-Client Relationship: The Argument for Autonomy
![handle is hein.journals/nclr65 and id is 339 raw text is: ESSAY
TOWARD A ]REVISED MODEL OF ATTORNEY-
CLIENT RELATIONSHIP: THE ARGUMENT
FOR AUTONOMY
MARCY STRAUSSt
To manipulate human beings even though for their own good is to deny
their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own
and therefore to degrade them. 1
In any legal proceeding the relationship between a client and his or
her attorney is of great importance. In this Essay Professor Strauss ex-
amines the nature of the attorney-client relationship in today's society.
Professor Strauss notes that despite the integral role played by attorneys
in the development of an informed consent model in the medical profes-
sion, no such model has been applied to the legal profession. Professor
Strauss argues that the current allocation of decisionmaking authority
between attorney and client is inappropriate; on too many matters the
attorney is granted exclusive decisionmaking authority. She challenges
this current allocation of decisionmaking authority and argues for an
alternative allocation based on the informed consent model Professor
Strauss explores the principle of autonomy as the basis for shifting in-
creased decisionmaking authority to the client. She concludes by consid-
ering-and rejecting-various arguments against applying an informed
consent model to the legal profession.
INTRODUCTION
Beginning in the 1950s attorneys were instrumental in structuring a signifi-
cant change in the relationship between doctors and patients. Traditionally, a
doctor was neither required nor expected to provide the patient full, if any, in-
formation regarding the patient's ailment or possible treatment.2 Patients were
t Associate Professor of Law, Loyola Law School. J.D. 1981, Georgetown University Law
Center; B.S. 1978, Northwestern University. I wish to thank Erwin Chemerinsky for his helpful
comments on a previous draft of this manuscript. Thanks are also owed to Lisa K. Rozzano and
Barbara A. Horowitz for their excellent research assistance.
1. I. BERLIN, Two Concepts of Liberty, in FOUR ESSAYS ON LIBERTY 118, 138 (1969).
2. See Burt, Attorney-Client Trust, 69 GEO. L.J. 1015, 1045 (1981). The Hippocratic writings,
for example, advocated concealing information about the patient's future or present condition:
Perform [these duties calmly] and adroitly, concealing most things from the patient while
you are attending to him. Give necessary orders with cheerfulness and serenity, turning his
attention away from what is being done to him; sometimes reprove sharply and emphati-
cally, and sometimes comfort with solicitude and attention, revealing nothing of the pa-
tient's future or present condition.
HIPPOCRATES, Decorum, in HIPPOCRATES 297, 299 (W.H.S. Jones trans. 2d ed. 1967), quoted in](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/nclr65&div=18&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Toward a Revised Model of Attorney-Client Relationship: The Argument for Autonomy
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