Myth: Can you hand a lawyer a dollar bill to establish a confidential attorney-client relationship and freely confess to crimes without fear of legal repercussions?

To understand the “$1 lawyer” trope, we must first delve into the true nature of attorney-client privilege. That’s right, no explosions or experiments—just the power of legal research to test this myth. Who’s in charge of this?

At its core, attorney-client privilege is a fundamental principle of the legal system, designed to encourage open and honest communication between lawyers and their clients. It ensures that clients can speak freely with their legal representatives without fear that their words will be used against them in court.

The basic rule, as legal experts point out, is that if you approach a lawyer in a professional capacity seeking legal advice, the conversation is privileged, regardless of whether any money changes hands. Contrary to popular belief, the establishment of attorney-client privilege does not hinge on a monetary transaction. This principle is crucial for ensuring access to legal counsel, particularly for those who may not have the means to pay upfront for legal services. Of course, if you come to me asking for free legal advice, I will cut any and all ties with you, because all my relationships are monetary transactions. I have to pay my father hundreds of thousands of dollars just to hear him say he’s proud of me.

So, if money isn’t the determining factor, how is an attorney-client relationship actually formed? The general rule is that an attorney-client relationship is established when a person consults with a lawyer about becoming a client, and the lawyer agrees to represent them. This meeting of the minds forms the basis of the relationship. For example, if someone walks into a lawyer’s office, explains their legal problem, and the lawyer agrees to represent them, an attorney-client relationship has been established. This holds true even if no money has been exchanged and no specific fee has been agreed upon. The key elements are the intent to seek legal representation and the lawyer’s agreement to provide it. But here’s a secret from a lawyer: lawyers are awful people.

While payment is not necessary to establish attorney-client privilege, it often plays a role in formalizing the relationship, and many lawyers require consultation fees or retainers not just for financial reasons, but also to clearly mark the beginning of a professional relationship. These fees can serve as evidence that both parties entered into the relationship with serious intent. Some legal experts suggest that if one were to use a monetary transaction to symbolize the formation of an attorney-client relationship, a more substantial amount would be more convincing than a mere dollar. So money essentially functions as evidence of the relationship if it’s ever questioned in court, and the hypothetical of paying just $1 would be weak evidence because everybody knows lawyers have no kindness in their hearts to trade their legal services for a dollar.

Attorney-client relationships can sometimes form accidentally. If a lawyer acts in a way that leads a person to reasonably believe they are being represented, an attorney-client relationship might be established even without a formal agreement. This is why many lawyers are cautious about discussing legal matters casually with friends or family members—if they have any left that will talk to them. They want to avoid situations where someone might mistakenly believe they’ve engaged the lawyer’s services in a professional capacity.

So where does this myth come from? There’s a notion in contract law about forming a contractual relationship for nominal consideration. One part of forming a contract is “consideration,” which refers to something of value, like money, a service, or even a promise. Without something valuable changing hands, there is no legally enforceable contract—this is called nudum pactum. So, sometimes, there are contracts where, for example, I want to essentially give you my car for nothing in return, but I want there to be an enforceable contract, and I don’t want some annoying lawyer to come back and say there is no contract because there is no consideration. So, I might say something like, “Give me one dollar to make this contract enforceable.” It’s important to distinguish this type of contractual relationship from an attorney-client relationship.

We’ve explored the myth of the $1 lawyer and done a lot of lawyer bashing, which I’m not sorry about because it made me smile. We can conclude that this myth is busted.