How much latitude does an attorney have in a deposition? Suppose there is a witness (not a principal) to a car accident. An attorney would naturally ask the witness about where s/he was at what time, what s/he saw of the accident, etc. But suppose the attorney started getting into "personal" questions. Such as "What do you do for a living? How much money do you make? Are you married, divorced, single? How many children do you have?" I would imagine that these are irrelevant questions that have nothing do with the car accident. Perhaps there is another group of questions in grey area: Do you own/drive a car? What kind? When was the last time you have been in an accident? These are also highly personal but may have tangential relevance. Is an attorney permitted to ask questions like those in either paragraphs two and three? Is the witness allowed to decline to answer such questions for reason of irrelevance, or other grounds?
Is an attorney permitted to ask questions like those in either paragraphs two and three? Yes. That does not mean that they will be considered relevant or even appropriate, though. Is the witness allowed to decline to answer such questions for reason of irrelevance, or other grounds? Yes. In general, though, it would be safer for the witness to state an objection (be it on the basis of irrelevance, confrontational, asked &amp; answered, as to form, etc.) and answer the question nonetheless, rather than simply refusing to answer it. By simply declining to answer a question regardless of the basis for refusal, the witness risks affording a crooked lawyer the opportunity to falsely generalize that the witness was uncooperative. One exception to the idea of "object-and-then-answer" is where some privilege is the alleged basis for the objection, since the substance of the answer could be such that it amounts to waiving the privilege even where that privilege is legitimate. The witness may also opt to answer the lawyer's irrelevant questions even without stating an objection. Some questions are so obviously irrelevant, dull, or stupid that a failure to raise an objection will be inconsequential. In such scenarios, raising objections can only lengthen the deposition transcript and make it harder to read. For a real-life example of deposition with plenty of dull questions, take a look at the transcript (which I split in parts one, two and three) of the 4-hour deposition where I myself was the witness (you can download the case file, almost in its entirety, from this page). You will notice that I did not raise objections during the deposition, the main reason being what I explained above: To avoid giving the opposing counsel an opportunity to falsely accuse me in court of being uncooperative during deposition. Furthermore, addressing the crook's futile questions (1) projects transparency and helps on the witness's part, and (2) precludes a false &amp; misleading impression as if the witness had something to hide. After all, wrongdoers are the ones most interested in eluding testimony in ways very similar to this other deposition. The reason of being of objections is precisely that the law "is aware" that, as a matter of fact, lawyers indulge in all kinds of abusive questions when taking sworn testimony --be it in trial or at deposition-- of a witness.
The term "lawyer up" usually refers to a person asserting their right to silence and counsel, which means that police interrogation must stop. A lawyer would "lawyer up" in that sense if he was being interrogated by the law. Michael Cohen, on the other hand, retained an attorney because of the threat of legal interrogation. As a general rule, absolutely everyone who is the subject of a legal investigation should seek legal counsel, to protect their rights. Although lawyers are broadly trained in many aspects of the law, they aren't experts in all such aspects, so it would probably not be wise for a tax attorney to defend himself in a criminal trial, and a family law expert might not be the best guy to hire to advise you on a complex real estate matter. Since the particular case is highly political, added insulation in the form of an attorney between you and the investigators is to be expected.
Probably moot considering how much time has passed but here goes. California 22349(a) states that no person may drive upon a highway at speeds of greater than 65 mph. So if you're going to be convicted under 22349(a), it doesn't matter if you're going 80 or 90. The charge is that you were doing greater than 65. The judge found you were going 90. 90 > 65. Conviction secured. The only sticky part is if the judge charged you the extra $150 because he alleges you went 90 instead of 80. You could appeal that, since even the officer argues you went 80, but since the officer testified that his radar clocked you at 90, you'd probably lose, especially since the officer's rationale for writing 80 was, by his testimony, your alleged admission at the scene, and you at the scene would have reason to downplay your speed. TL;DR: Yes, the judge, as the trier of fact, can do that. Something came out during the trial (radar at 90) that contradicted the ticket (80) so the trier of fact (the judge) resolved this by going with the radar. You might have been able to get out of it, if you asked the officer why he didn't write 90 when that's what the radar read. There was a reason the officer didn't trust that radar, and if he articulated it, then the judge would likely have stuck with 80.
This is not legal advice, It is not even primarily a legal opinion. It is a legal position. The lawyer, acting on behalf of the agency from which you requested information, is giving the reasons why that agency is declining your request. The lawyer is presumably either an employee of the agency, or has the agency as a client. In any case, this is notice of the position that the agency would be likely to adopt if you took further legal action, such as a suit to compel disclosure. Lawyers provide such position statements ion behalf of clients or employers all the time. Such statements indicate why certain action is taken, what basis the client or employer has for taking or not taking certain action, and often indicate the nature of the defenses or theories that will be used should a lawsuit follow, although the client or employer is free to change the theory at the pleading stage. Not only is it not unethical for the lawyer to respond in this way, the agency is, I am fairly sure, required by the law to provide a valid reason when a request is declined. That is what they have done, provide a reason that they claim is valid, with some legal reasoning about why it is valid. Note that I express no view on whether the reason given is in fact valid, or would be sustained in a suit. That would be a different question.
The issue is more one of what an attorney is ethically authorized to disclose pursuant to professional ethics rules (Rule of Professional Conduct 1.6 as enacted locally) more than one of attorney-client privilege. Attorney-client privilege governs what someone can or cannot be compelled to disclose without their consent (usually by subpoena). Attorney confidentiality, in contrast, governs what an attorney can disclosed when not compelled to do so by something like a subpoena. Generally, disclosure of confidential client information is allowed if it is in furtherance of the representation or authorized by the client (there are also other exceptions but those aren't really any different in a two lawyer v. one lawyer situation). Often when two attorneys represent the same person (and the disclosure won't waive the privileged nature of the information vis-a-vis third-parties under a joint defense theory), disclosures from one attorney for a person to another attorney for a person will do that. In practice, however, the analysis could be quite fact specific and there isn't really a bright line rule governing when it would or would not be allowed.
To determine whether an attorney is licensed to practice in a specific jurisdiction, you need to look up that attorney in the bar that applies to that jurisdiction. Some attorneys do not allow their information to be posted on the online lookup, in that case you would have to call the bar to confirm that s/he is licensed. I assumed you meant more than "case" in the legal sense above. For instance, if you want a Patent, you would need someone licensed to the Pat Bar. Cases they have worked on: You can use Google Scholar and select Case Law / the Jurisdiction you are concerned with and search for their name exactly (I would also limit the time frame.) The attorneys for each side are listed at the top. Some of the large cases have multiple pages of attorneys with their name on the case. Alternatively, if you have a subscription service to WestLaw Next, Bloomberg Law, or LexisNexis you can lookup the attorney and see case information as well, as well as court documents they have submitted in various cases - this allows you to get a glimpse of their writing style. Alternatively, you can visit your local law school's law library and, if they have public access, use the public terminals (at least my law school has these.).
If the question asks, "did you do X" where X is or includes a crime that you could be criminally prosecuted for, you can invoke the 5th amendment in refusing to answer that. I have seen that done and seen that objection to the question sustained in court. However, if admitting to X would provide only civil liability, then the 5th would not apply. At trial, you may also have to take care not to give direct testimony on things that are so closely related that you "open the door" to being required to answer that question. For example, you can't say "I don't owe because I did X" and then expect to not have to answer "So just to be clear, did you do X?" Also, depending on context, invoking the 5th might cause a jury to view your testimony more skeptically (cpast points out that "For civil cases, adverse inferences based on pleading the fifth are totally okay"), and if that's going to come up you should ask your attorney about whether or not it'd be a good idea strategically.
Typically an Answer would have two parts. The first part presents the Defendant's side of the story raised in the Petition in an effort to assert that the Petition when viewed in light of the actual facts hasn't demonstrated a right to relief. The second part sets forth "affirmative defenses", most of which are procedural in nature. An affirmative defense raises some set of circumstances not discussed in the Petition that make it appropriate to deny relief even when, but for the defense, if everything in the Petition was true, this would suffice to establish grounds for relief. For example, procedural defenses might include: failure to meet a deadline, failure to give notice to the proper persons, failure to pay a filing fee, failure to include required information (such as a case number or a statement of facts or a signature) in the Petition, or lack of standing to file the Petition on behalf of the child because parental rights or legal guardianship are absent or because the person filing the Petition isn't an adult. The notion is that the Reply, in theory, should limit itself to responding to the newly raised procedural defenses stated in the Answer, or to new documents provided with the Answer, instead of trying to argue and resolve every dispute of fact or credibility issues between the Petition's version of the facts and the Answer's version of the facts. When in doubt, talk about it in the Reply. At worst, it is beyond the scope of what should be included in a Reply and can be ignored by the hearing officer as harmless. And, sometimes the hearing officer will decide that they want to know what is said even if it isn't strictly within the proper scope of a Reply. Certainly provide any documents that weren't previously provided that rebut the claims in the Answer.