Sex and Law

The question every lawyer in town is asking these days is whether the California State Bar has any right to intrude on his sex life. Or her sex life.

It isn’t a very profound question, but then lawyers are not profound people.

What is causing them consternation is a study under way by the Bar’s Board of Governors that could result in either the elimination or regulation of sex between attorneys and their clients.

The consideration stems not from a rush of conscience by the board, but as a result of pressure from Assemblywoman Lucille Roybal-Allard of Los Angeles.

She is author of a law that requires the Bar to adopt a rule governing lawyer-client sex.

The subject has become so popular that even “L.A. Law” offered an episode on the debate, thus legitimizing its discussion in the real world.

My own interest in the Bar’s dilemma was precipitated by a conversation I overheard between two lawyers in a courthouse elevator.

One of them was saying it was nobody’s business who, as he put it, his “sexual co-habitant” was. Lawyers talk that way. It’s the party-of-the-first-part syndrome, or, in this case, the parties of the first and second parts.

Lawyer No. 2 replied that it wasn’t so much whether they should have sex with clients, but whether they should charge them for the time it takes to achieve satisfaction.

Moan all you want.

The whole thing sounded a little like a Woody Allen movie, but I nevertheless began to wonder how seriously lawyers were taking the matter.

Of particular interest was a suggestion by one member of the Board of Governors that a client be advised of her rights before engaging in sex with her legal counselor.

It would require a lawyer to warn his prospective playmate in writing that joining him in what the French call le sport could have adverse effects.

The proposal doesn’t specify what the adverse effects might be, but others have speculated it could mean erosion of a client’s trust and reliance in her lawyer.

An attorney I spoke with named Max winked and said any client who had sex with him would emerge not only with vastly increased trust and reliance, but also with awesome respect.

Max is single and always on the alert for what he regards as sexual signals from women in his midst. He sees these signals in anything from a smile to a punch in the mouth.

Forget that some consider him slime and despise the ground he walks on, Max knows they would all really like to get him into the sack.

He is not unlike Richard Benjamin in “Diary of a Mad Housewife,” who never seemed quite able to perceive what was going on around him.

A woman attorney, Beverly, suggests that lawyers be furnished with a card they could hand a client before the sex act takes place.

Such a card would contain wording similar to that in the Miranda Rule, which advises suspects of their right to remain silent, etc.

In this case, it would be the right not to have sex with one’s lawyer and warn of the potential for problems thereafter. The right to remain silent would not be an issue.

Another lawyer, Roger, said that while he has never personally “romped” with a client (romped?), it would not be a concern of the state Bar if he did.

Allowing the Bar to make these kinds of rules for them, he said, would be like having a third person in bed during coition, a practice of which he does not happen to approve.

“I don’t need a member of the Board of Governors lying between me and my lover commenting on the propriety of my actions,” he said. “If I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it.”

Roger regards as “ethical foreplay” a further proposal that an attorney suggest a client get another lawyer if there is any possibility they might end up under the covers, or, in certain cases, under the desk.

“How would you know?” Roger demanded. “That kind of thing can happen pretty suddenly. One minute you’re adjudicating and the next minute you’re fornicating. There’s no time to serve papers.”

None of the attorneys I spoke with, by the way, wanted their names used.

“It is best,” Max said grandly, “to keep me in petto. “ According to my Latin phrase book, that means in secret.

I guess it really doesn’t matter who lawyers have sex with, where they have it, how they have it or if they have it at all.

But if it keeps them away from cluttering the dockets with lawsuits, then I say vive la bagatelle! That’s French. It means let the party of the first part enjoy the party of the second part, and I’ll see you in court.