Please, just shoot me.

[Ashaela]

Please?

You'd be doing me a huge favor....

Imagine, if you will, a registration form. Just an innocent, unassuming, happy-go-lucky bundle of a few paper sheets, with various questions, a place for a signature and date, and a few sets of instructions. Do you have that picture in your head?

Good. Now imagine that Question 5 asks "Since the last time you registered, have you been or are you currently becoming green, blue, or purple? Answer yes or no, and provide your explanation below." This information is required and maintained internally .

Now look down to Question 34 which asks "Have you ever been green, blue, or purple? You do not need to report if you are currently changing colors. Please provide your explanation below." This information is required for the public profile maintained on our website and anyone in the world can see it at any time.

Now imagine that you're a lawyer with too much time on your hands. Do you read the questions and answer them? Do you call to clarify exactly what needs to be written?

Or do you decide that question 34 cannot be "read in harmony" (yes, exact quote) with question 5: therefore, your client who is turning blue does not need to report it: therefore, advising him to LIE on his form and say that he has not been and is not becoming blue and only afterward, once you've committed falsification, call up, not to ask, but to TELL us that your answer is right anyway, our form sucks, and that question 5 can't be asking for what question 5 is asking, because question 34 asks a different question?

Yeah.

That's what I would have done, too. Wouldn't anyone?

[Soulstealer]

I'm a bit confused but last I checked a real lawyer is unlikely to advise his client to lie. I can make up lawyery sounding phrases too you know, I have a book you know.

Mind you if he does turn out to be a real lawyer that's the kind of advice that could get him in trouble.

[Salesmonkey]

I don't know if your organization has a penalty for falsification, but if there is, I say nail them. There is no requirement that the questions "harmonize". They are two separate questions. The client was becoming blue, and chose to lie about it. Done!

[csquared]

Report the lawyer to the State Bar.

[Ashaela]

Report the lawyer to the State Bar.

I would love to do that.... Unfortunately, he never gave us his name or his client's name or license number. He was so absolutely positively convinced that he's right and we're wrong, but too scared to provide any identifying information.

"Yes, I did exactly what you told me not to. That's because what you told me to do isn't really what you meant for me to do. I'm not going to listen to anything you say, because you don't know what you're talking about or what your own registration form says. And because I'm so sure you have no basis to discipline me and you'd be laughed out of court if you try, I'll never tell you who I am."

So, we'll have to wait until Enforcement gets the letter of correction; then they can start an investigation as to why the doctor falsified his renewal; then the doctor can blame the lawyer; then they can go from there.

[Betweenshades]

This makes my brain hurt.

[Legal Eagle]

Two different questions, two possibly different answers, just because for 1 person the answers are the same doesn't mean they are always.

idiot.

[Soulstealer]

I would love to do that.... Unfortunately, he never gave us his name or his client's name or license number. He was so absolutely positively convinced that he's right and we're wrong, but too scared to provide any identifying information.

That just makes me more convinced he wasn't really a lawyer at all.