An Inquiry Into Legal Counseling by Robert S.

Redmount

Legal Counseling is defined by the author based on two standpoints.

In a larger sense, it is the broad range of consultation that lawyers can
provide to their clients. In a narrower sense, it is that group of particular
attitudes, skills, and strategies that a lawyer utilizes mostly in his office to
help individual clients to meet specific needs and resolve specific problems.

In the Philippines, many Filipinos lack understanding of the law. They

simply rely on hearsays about a certain fact. That is why; it is a lawyer’s
duty to translate the law in a layman’s term making it more comprehensive
to others not equipped with knowledge of the law. More so, it is also a
lawyer’s responsibility to utilize the law through an effective counseling.

However, legal counselling is not that easy as it appears. Most of the

time, clients are not concerned in knowing the law. Their concern is more on
the possible consequences that they may face after applying the same and in
effect, they are blinded by their eagerness to turn the tables in their favor
even if it involves circumvention or subversion of the law. That being said, a
lawyer must see to it that in serving his client, he must also take into
consideration his duty to the legal profession by respecting and upholding
the laws and legal procedures. In the same vein, after a client had undergone
the process of legal counseling, it gives them a sense of relief and security
after being presented with potential solutions to their queries and concerns.
Presented with pool of solutions, it must also be taken into consideration the
risk of litigation whenever negotiation fails between the client and a third
party. Counseling then may act as precedent to or as a complement to a
process of litigation

Counseling, in another sense is dealing with the resources of both the

lawyer and his client in terms of what they have and the extent of what they
are capable of doing for the other. In the Philippine setting, there is a clear
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inequalities that exists between an economically poor client which has a
limited access to legal services and a well-to-do client who has an ample
access a variety of professional services that he needs. In a social and
economic context, inequality again may exist between counselor and client
that may militate against sensitivity, consideration, and fairness on the part
of one party or the other in the counselling relationship. The best example is
the services afforded to those who seek the help of Public Attorneys. I am
not saying that they lack the skill of a competent lawyer but due to number
of clients asking for their assistance on a daily basis, there is a possibility
that the lawyer is constraint to attend to all their needs considering that
Public Attorneys are outnumbered by the bulk of clients in need of their aid.
Thus, the quality of their service might be sacrificed over the quantity of
clients seeking for their help.

Clients also play a huge role in the counselling process. The

voluntariness of the client in rendering information and the receptiveness of
the counselor in receiving it form an important foundation of the whole
counselling. A client may distort some information or may err in their
knowledge of a fact but once the client cooperates willingly with the lawyer,
the latter may easily process informations given and come up with the
possible solution to the client’s problems. One may say that legal analysis
generates an increased rigor in comprehending and dealing with problem
situations that are otherwise too complex to make out. Legal analysis, then,
would seem to be the instrument that provides both sense and direction for
the resolution of client problems.

Legal counseling, usually being most often directed to some

reasonably clear purpose and largely objective circumstance, may come off
best in the decision-making phase of the counselling process. Lawyers are
taught to be decisive. Decisiveness can be pre-emptive however,