'What did you do at work today' can be a dangerous (and expensive) question for a lawyer: A likely case in point

The Chicago Tribune reports this evening that the Solicitors Regulation Authority has "issued a written rebuke" and hit a British lawyer, Chris Gossage, a partner at Russells Solicitors, with a fine of £1,000 (roughly $1,650) for revealing that J.K. Rowling, the creator of the Harry Potter series, had published a detective novel last year under a pseudonym.

Rowling wanted to publish a book without having it compared to her Harry Potter heptalogy. So, just like any self-respecting billionaire author, Rowling arranged with her publisher, Little Brown, to have The Cuckoo's Calling published under the fictitious name of Robert Galbraith, complete with an extensive publicity campaign about the "first-time" author, supposedly a former plainclothes Royal Military Police investigator who had left the force in 2003 to work in the civilian security industry.

"Galbraith's" book got good reviews -- which Ms. Rowling found quite gratifying -- but not many copies were sold (somewhere between 500 and 1,500 depending on the source consulted).

Sales were weak, that is, until lawyer Gossage let slip to his wife, or to his wife's BFF, one Judith Callegari, that Rowling was the real author. Either way, Callegari tweeted the juicy tidbit to a British journalist and author, India Knight, and the secret unraveled soon thereafter. Once this happened, Wikipedia notes, "sales of the book rose by 4000 percent, and Little Brown printed an additional 140,000 copies to meet the increase in demand."

Naturally, Rowling was devastated by the unauthorized disclosure, and infuriated. She sued Callegari, Gossage and Gossage's firm.

OK, the rich really are different from you and me. (Rowling's suit settled with the firm making a substantial donation to a charity designated by Rowling.)

But the point is that Rowling had the right to publish her book under any name she wanted -- and she had every reason to expect that her lawyers would respect her right to use the pseudonym. With few exceptions, lawyers in Britain and Illinois alike are required to maintain client confidences.

In Illinois, lawyers confidentiality obligations are set out at Rule 1.6 of our Rules of Professional Conduct.

Rule 1.6 provides:

(a) A lawyer shall not reveal information relating to the representation of a client unless the client gives informed consent, the disclosure is impliedly authorized in order to carry out the representation, or the disclosure is permitted by paragraph (b) or required by paragraph (c).

(b) A lawyer may reveal information relating to the representation of a client to the extent the lawyer reasonably believes necessary:

(1) to prevent the client from committing a crime in circumstances other than those specified in paragraph (c);

(2) to prevent the client from committing fraud that is reasonably certain to result in substantial injury to the financial interests or property of another and in furtherance of which the client has used or is using the lawyer’s services;

(3) to prevent, mitigate or rectify substantial injury to the financial interests or property of another that is reasonably certain to result or has resulted from the client’s commission of a crime or fraud in furtherance of which the client has used the lawyer’s services;

(4) to secure legal advice about the lawyer’s compliance with these Rules;

(5) to establish a claim or defense on behalf of the lawyer in a controversy between the lawyer and the client, to establish a defense to a criminal charge or civil claim against the lawyer based upon conduct in which the client was involved, or to respond to allegations in any proceeding concerning the lawyer’s representation of the client; or

(6) to comply with other law or a court order.

(c) A lawyer shall reveal information relating to the representation of a client to the extent the lawyer reasonably believes necessary to prevent reasonably certain death or substantial bodily harm.

(d) Information received by a lawyer participating in a meeting or proceeding with a trained intervener or panel of trained interveners of an approved lawyers’ assistance program, or in an intermediary program approved by a circuit court in which nondisciplinary complaints against judges or lawyers can be referred, shall be considered information relating to the representation of a client for purposes of these Rules.

Even the casual reader will note that there is no exception in the rule for telling your spouse or significant other a really good story. There is no such exemption in Britain either, which is why Mr. Gossage is out £1,000 tonight.

So, to any non-lawyers married or in a relationship with a lawyer: When you ask how things are going at work, or whether anything interesting happened at the office today, and you get a grunt or a shrug or a few meaningless syllables in response, please don't take offense.