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Related Experiment Videos

Prohibiting lawyer-client sex.

T Gutheil1, L Jorgenson, P Sutherland

  • 1Program in Psychiatry and the Law, Massachusetts Mental Health Center, Boston 02115.

The Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
|January 1, 1992
PubMed
Summary

Lawyers, like psychotherapists, hold significant power over clients. Sexual contact between attorneys and clients should be presumed unethical due to undue influence and breach of fiduciary duty.

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Area of Science:

  • Legal Ethics
  • Professional Responsibility
  • Psychology

Background:

  • Sexual contact between psychotherapists/physicians and patients is widely recognized as unethical.
  • The ethical implications of sexual contact between lawyers and clients are less explored in professional literature.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To anatomize the similarities in vulnerabilities and power imbalances in therapist-patient and lawyer-client relationships.
  • To argue for holding lawyers to fiduciary standards in personal dealings with clients.
  • To propose a legal standard for attorney-client sexual contact.

Main Methods:

  • Comparative analysis of power dynamics in therapeutic and legal relationships.
  • Examination of ethical frameworks governing professional conduct.
  • Legal and ethical literature review.

Main Results:

  • Significant parallels exist in the vulnerabilities and power imbalances between patients and clients.
  • These imbalances create opportunities for professionals to exert undue influence.
  • Existing ethical guidelines for psychotherapists can inform standards for lawyers.

Conclusions:

  • Lawyers should be held to fiduciary standards in personal interactions with clients.
  • A rebuttable presumption of undue influence and breach of fiduciary duty should apply to sexual contact between attorneys and clients.
  • Establishing such a presumption protects clients and upholds professional integrity.

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