Lawyer Advising in Evidence Disclosure

Abstract

This paper examines how the advice that lawyers provide to their clients affects the disclosure of evidence and the outcome of adjudication, and how the adjudicator should allocate the burden of proof in light of these effects. Despite lawyers' expertise in assessing the evidence, their advice is found to have no effect on adjudication, if the lawyers follow disclosure strategies that are undominated in a certain sense. A lawyer's advice can influence the outcome to his client's favor, if he can credibly advise his client to suppress some favorable evidence, but this effect is socially undesirable.