How does attorney-client privilege work? And how is it not perjury to defend the innocence of someone who admitted their guilt to you?
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Attorney client privilege means that confidential communications between an attorney and a client for the purposes of obtaining legal advice are protected and neither party can be compelled to testify about the communications unless the client waives the privilege. This privilege is pretty ironclad and can only be broken in very specific circumstances such as if the client speaks to their attorney for the purposes of obtaining advice on how to commit or conceal a crime.
It’s not perjury simply to defend a guilty client. Defending a guilty client is more than just trying to convince a jury that they are innocent, a defense attorney’s job is to make the prosecution prove the guilt, not to prove their client’s innocence. If your client tells you they are guilty, you can’t then put them on the stand and have them make false statements, but there’s much more to a defense than that.
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