Michael Clayton: Attorney Client Privilege Essay -- Film Analysis

It is a plot line that seemed to come unfeigned out of a John Grisham novel. After only it had all the study elements a conspiracy, a corrupt corporation, but most importantly a lawyer examining his inner conscience only to decide to break with the place quo and expose his corporate masters. In fact, unrivalled could say that the film Michael Clayton (2007), was a modern day John Grisham film that never was. In all certainty, Michael Clayton is a typical Hollywood movie with a typical Hollywood ending where good defeats evil and where truth prevails over obfuscation.That does not spurious that it should be dismissed so readily however. The film Michael Clayton still raises some of the ethical questions within the legal profession. Namely, the film explores the concept of the Attorney guest Privilege, and through its plot and rich storyline, questions the very notion of it. However, it is easy to blockade that the film is a pure work of fiction and although it does a fit job of pointing out the disadvantages of the Attorney Client Privilege, its assertion that the privilege should be eroded when the attorney knows that his or her client is lying, is just as ghostly as the scenes are which are in the film.Im not a miracle worker Im a janitor, remarks Michael Clayton in one of the opening scenes of the film. An apt phrase because Clayton has been dispatched to rein in a coadjutor associate named Arthur Edens who is suffering from a manic disruptionstripping take away his clothes during the middle of a deposition and running around bare in the parking lot. Visiting Edens in jail after the incident, the sighs of the breakdown showed no sighs of subsiding. In the middle of a conversation with Clayton, Edens goes on a tirade, eventually aski... ...t everyone has a job to do. impartialityyers areand should not bean excommunication to that rule.Works CitedFreedman, Monroe H., and Abbe Smith. Understanding Lawyers Ethics. bracing Providence, NJ LexisNex is, 2010. Print.Kairys, David. Legal Education As Training For Hierarchy. The Politics of Law a Progressive Critique. By Duncan Kennedy. untested York Basic, 1998. 54-75. Print.Keefe, Patrick Radden. Michael Claytons Devastating Critique of the Legal Profession. - By Patrick Radden Keefe. Slate Magazine. Washington Post.Newsweek interactional Co. LLC, 19 Feb. 2008. Web. 10 Mar. 2011.Shanahan, Sara Jane. Another View The Eroding Attorney-Client Privilege - NYTimes.com. NYTimes.com. The New York Times Company, 2 Nov. 2009. Web. 10 Mar. 2011.Simon, David. The Attorney-Cleint Privilege As Applied to Corporations. Yale Law Journal 65.7 (1956) 953-90. Print.