If Trump Can Be Bound By and Enforce An Agreement He Was Not Aware of...

[jberryhill]

12. Would need more facts

Long story short - Cohen will eventually be disbarred, but not for this.

The rule about lawyers paying fees on behalf of clients is about paying them in anticipation of litigation. The idea is to prevent lawyers from essentially cooking up lawsuits that wouldn't otherwise get filed, or obtaining undue leverage over the client. There was no pending or contemplated litigation in the negotiation of the Hush Contract, and I can't see where anyone thinks the rule applies. But, yeah, someone said so on the TeeVee machine, so...

But it's pretty clear that EC LLC was a party to the contract. It is also clear that Trump could have entered into yet another confidential agreement where Trump assigned rights and delegated duties to EC in connection with formation and performance of the contract. From there, it gets messy, but since nobody is under oath on statements they make to the press, then more facts would need to be established to get anywhere near that particular rule of practice.

OMG, I paid for my client's lunch at a Smashburger during his deposition and forgot to bill him for it. Meh.