Real-Life Decision Making
Legal secretaries have a wide range of responsibilities. Occasionally,
they have to make on-the-spot decisions. Often, legal secretaries have access
to documents and information that only the client and his attorney know.
You are a legal secretary working for a criminal defense attorney in a
major city. One of your boss's high-profile clients has been arrested
and charged with drunk driving. The case is moving quickly toward trial.
One Monday morning, your boss says that the coming week will be spent mainly
on the case. He asks you to pull together all the relevant documents and files.
You spend the morning collecting records. While you are careful not to
snoop, you must become familiar with the information it contains. And some
of that information, you quickly realize, is damaging.
According to affidavits in the files, at least two people saw the suspect
drinking at a local nightclub in the hours before the accident.
At noon, your boss heads out for a lunch meeting. A half hour
later, you get a phone call. The person on the line says he is the client
and needs the names of all the potential witnesses your boss might call in
his defense. The client says the matter is urgent and that he can't wait.
He has to have those names.
What do you do?