Two lawyers deceive their clients by asking them for money to bribe the prosecutor.

In this case, the evidence was very conclusive and the lawyers have decided to accept the sentence in order to benefit from the reduction of the penalty. According to reports and as stated by the Public Prosecutor's Office, these two lawyers were hired by a client and his partner for the defense regarding the complaint in a criminal proceeding for embezzlement.

It is striking that the background of the embezzlement crime involves an accusation against someone who allegedly illegitimately took possession of assets that do not belong to him, and that the lawyers, in order to defend that lawsuit, intended to do something very similar with their clients' money. The fact that the lawyer who is supposed to defend you tries to deceive you to illegitimately obtain money under the pretext that it was supposedly going to be used to bribe the prosecutor is extremely serious.

When the trial date was set, it was suspended due to the impossibility of one of the lawyers to attend because of health problems. Later, a new trial date was set and before it was held, the lawyers told their client "the advisability of reaching an agreement with the prosecutor to obtain a sentence of less than two years in prison."

The proposal from these attorneys was that the staggering amount of €56,000 was necessary and that, in addition, €7,600 in cash had to be advanced in order, according to the account in the Prosecutor's Office's brief, "to give to the prosecutor under the table as well as another €2,400, also in cash, to remove some criminal records."

The client found this proposal strange and when he asked the attorneys for an explanation, he received the response that "you'd be surprised at the number of agreements reached with the prosecutor, that this money was given to buy the Prosecutor's Office, that the money was given to the prosecutor and that it was an agreement outside the law."

The case file shows that the two accused lawyers took advantage of their client's legal ignorance and, making use of the trust relationship that is created between lawyer and client, "breached the essential duties that must guide an attorney's conduct in the practice of his profession."

Finally, the lawyers have accepted a plea agreement of 11 months in prison each and a fine of €3,300, as well as a fine of €2,700 for a continuing offense of slander. The prosecutor has withdrawn the charge for a continuing offense of professional disloyalty due to new Supreme Court case law. The prison sentence initially requested by the prosecutor was 2 years and 6 months for a continuing offense of fraud, as well as a fine of €6,480. In the plea agreement, the Prosecutor's Office has applied the mitigating circumstances of undue delays and damage repair, since €6,000 have been deposited as civil liability in favor of the injured party.

This sentence makes it clear that, although in general the legal profession has excellent professionals who apply the law with dedication and professional loyalty, there are always minority bad practices in which those who should defend us use their knowledge to deceive their client. The relationship between lawyer and client is unbalanced because the lawyer knows the law and clients in many cases do not have basic knowledge.

The fact that these lawyers, instead of dedicating themselves to defending their clients' interests, use them to deceive them and charge exorbitant fees based on a scam, should make clear the need to strengthen guarantees in contracts with lawyers.

Every client has the right to receive information about the service that will be provided and the price that will be charged, as well as a breakdown of the items to which it will be allocated. It is clear that in the engagement letter the lawyers were not going to be so clumsy as to include "kickback" or "bribe" for the Prosecutor, but it could have been implicitly included within the agreed price and that informally the clients were told that "tall tale" that more had to be paid to buy the prosecutor, since those agreements outside the law are supposedly "normal."

These bad practices take advantage of the moment of vulnerability faced by clients who hire a criminal proceeding in which they tend to trust their lawyer and follow the guidelines he sets. An overwhelmed client would clutch at straws. That's why this type of behavior, which does the most harm to the legal profession and to society, must be publicly condemned and can't be silenced, but must be made visible to prevent them from happening again.

The fact that some lawyers have the nerve to make up that they need money to buy the prosecutor is such an extremely blatant scam that it should be the alarm that warns us that this situation is not normal. In these cases, it is advisable to seek a second professional opinion when something seems strange to us and makes us distrust.