What Can I Do If My Criminal Defense Lawyer Isn't Keeping Me Informed?

Lawyers must abide by ethical rules to keep clients informed about the progress of their case. If you don't feel like your lawyer is keeping you in the know, what can you do?

Lawyers' Duty to Keep Clients Informed

Defendants should insist that their lawyers adhere to their ethical obligation to inform them about the progress of their cases. As defined by ethical rules, a lawyer's duty to keep clients informed has two primary components:

• to advise the defendant of case developments (such as a prosecutor's offered plea bargain or locating an important defense witness), and
• to respond reasonably promptly to a defendant's request for information.

The ABA rules states the lawyer should keep the client "reasonably and currently informed...." (ABA Criminal Justice Standard 4-3.9 (2024).)

Steps Clients Can Take to Encourage Prompt Updates From Lawyers

The duty to keep clients informed rests on attorneys, not clients. But on the theory that if the attorney screws up it's the client who usually suffers, here are a couple of steps that defendants can take to try to secure effective communication with their lawyers:

Raise the issue early on. Establish, in advance, a clear understanding about case updates. If an attorney's practice is to initiate contact only when a development occurs, the attorney should communicate that to the client at the outset of the representation. If a client wants (and can pay for) regular updates regardless of whether developments have taken place, that too can be spelled out in advance—even included in a written retainer agreement.

Be reasonable. A defendant who phones their attorney with a request for information can indicate a willingness to speak with the lawyer's associate, secretary, or paralegal. The lawyer may be too tied up on other cases to return the call personally but may have time to pass along information through an assistant. And because some lawyers have poor communication skills, the defendant may be better off getting information from an assistant than from the lawyer.