Criminal Liability of a Lawyer for Disclosing Secrets

By virtue of their position, a lawyer is exposed to extremely sensitive information and data related to the personal, financial, and legal lives of their clients. This obligates them to maintain confidentiality of any secrets they learn, whether during or outside of litigation, and whether the legal representation relationship continues or expires. Most legislation has carefully addressed this obligation, and has specifically designated cases of disclosure of professional secrets, particularly by lawyers, with specific criminal provisions that criminalize such behavior and impose criminal liability that varies according to the seriousness of the act and its consequences. In order to fully understand the subject, an inductive approach will be adopted, gathering information to arrive at conclusions. An analytical approach will also be used, through analyzing legal texts and some judicial decisions, to fully understand the subject. The study, entitled "Criminal Liability of the Lawyer for Disclosing Secrets," will be divided into three sections. The first section is devoted to defining the nature of the crime of disclosing secrets. The second section sheds light on the elements of the crime of a lawyer disclosing professional secrets. The third section discusses the controls on a lawyer's retention of professional secrecy and the exceptions thereto.