Mr Daniel Rosenberg This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. JABE News - Jewish Association For Business Ethics

   www.jabe.org/news/article_ft_0 - [Cached]

   Published on: 9/4/2000   Last Visited: 6/29/2004

   Daniel Rosenberg, a London lawyer, was not enjoying the discussion. The lawyers on the other side raised their voices and banged the table. But the two parties finally reached agreement in the early hours of the morning. The opposing lawyers produced a draft document and Mr Rosenberg and his client retired to another room to read it. Mr Rosenberg soon discovered that the other lawyers had made a mistake. They had put a decimal point in the wrong place. But far from damaging his client, the error would greatly benefit him. What should Mr Rosenberg do? His knew his duty as a lawyer was to carry out his client's wishes, provided they were lawful. But he also knew he had a duty to tell his client of the error and advise him to tell the other party. Mr Rosenberg presented this real-life dilemma to a recent seminar of the London-based Jewish Association for Business Ethics (Jabe).
   ...
   Mr Rosenberg was correct in saying he had a duty to advise his client to point out the error. But having done so, he had to respect the principles of client confidentiality. The decision whether to tell the other side was the client's. What actually happened in the end? The client's response to Mr Rosenberg's advice to point out the error was: "You've got to be joking." But Mr Rosenberg did not leave it there. "We have to be the keeper of the client's conscience," he says. He told his client that he was entering a business relationship with the other party and asked whether this was a good way to start. He also asked what the effect would be on the client's reputation if people found out he had concealed the error.