Home › Missouri › Rules of Professional Conduct › Rule 4-2.1

Court Rules Network • courtrules.net

Mo. R. Prof'l Conduct 4-2.1

Not legal advice. Verify against official sources before relying on this text in any legal matter.

Rule 4-2.1 Counselor - Advisor

Rules of Professional Conduct

← Previous Rule 4-1.22: File Retention Next → Rule 4-2.2: Counselor - Intermediary

Rule Text

In representing a client, a lawyer shall exercise independent professional judgment and render candid advice. In rendering advice, a lawyer may refer not only to law but to other considerations such as moral, economic, social, and political factors that may be relevant to the client's situation.

Amendment history: (Adopted Aug. 7, 1985, eff. Jan. 1, 1986. Amended March 1, 2007, eff. July 1, 2007.)

Plain-English Summary (for reference only — not a substitute for the rule text above)

This summary is not the rule. The rule text controls.

When you hire a lawyer, they need to give you honest advice based on their own professional judgment, not just tell you what you want to hear. A good lawyer will speak up even when the truth is hard to hear, because you're paying them for their real opinion on your legal situation.

Lawyers aren't limited to just talking about the law when they advise you. They can also bring up things like money concerns, personal values, family or social issues, and even political factors if those things matter to your decision. A good lawyer looks at the whole picture of your situation, not just the legal rules, to help you figure out the best path forward.

This means your lawyer should treat you like a person with a real life and real concerns, not just a legal problem to solve. If a decision has consequences beyond the courtroom, like affecting your finances, your family, or your reputation, your lawyer can and should talk with you about those things too.

Committee Notes

COMMENT

Scope of Advice

[1] A client is entitled to straightforward advice expressing the lawyer's honest assessment. Legal advice often involves unpleasant facts and alternatives that a client may be disinclined to confront. In presenting advice, a lawyer endeavors to sustain the client's morale and may put advice in as acceptable a form as honesty permits. However, a lawyer should not be deterred from giving candid advice by the prospect that the advice will be unpalatable to the client.

[2] Advice couched in narrow legal terms may be of little value to a client, especially where practical considerations, such as cost or effects on other people, are predominant. Purely technical legal advice, therefore, can sometimes be inadequate. It is proper for a lawyer to refer to relevant moral and ethical considerations in giving advice. Although a lawyer is not a moral advisor as such, moral and ethical considerations impinge upon most legal questions and may decisively influence how the law will be applied.

[3] A client may expressly or impliedly ask the lawyer for purely technical advice. When such a request is made by a client experienced in legal matters, the lawyer may accept it at face value. When such a request is made by a client inexperienced in legal matters, however, the lawyer's responsibility as advisor may include indicating that more may be involved than strictly legal considerations.

[4] Matters that go beyond strictly legal questions may also be in the domain of another profession. Family matters can involve problems within the professional competence of psychiatry, clinical psychology, or social work; business matters can involve problems within the competence of the accounting profession or of financial specialists. Where consultation with a professional in another field is itself something a competent lawyer would recommend, the lawyer should make such a recommendation. At the same time, a lawyer's advice at its best often consists of recommending a course of action in the face of conflicting recommendations of experts.

Offering Advice

[5] In general, a lawyer is not expected to give advice until asked by the client. However, when a lawyer knows that a client proposes a course of action that is likely to result in substantial adverse legal consequences to the client, the lawyer's duty to the client under Rule 4-1.4 may require that the lawyer offer advice if the client's course of action is related to the representation. Similarly, when a matter is likely to involve litigation, it may be necessary under Rule 4-1.4 to inform the client of forms of dispute resolution that might constitute reasonable alternatives to litigation. A lawyer ordinarily has no duty to initiate investigation of a client's affairs or to give advice that the client has indicated is unwanted, but a lawyer may initiate advice to a client when doing so appears to be in the client's interest.

← Previous Rule 4-1.22: File Retention Next → Rule 4-2.2: Counselor - Intermediary