Hired an attorney, have to administer his laptop
 

Have a lawyer,.. we have to administer his laptop. But we can't actually read anything on his computer, or connect to it, because of attourney/client privilege.

How do you go about administering a lawyers laptop?

Wear gloves, and wash your hands frequently. :)

Joking aside, you can't do it as described. If you can't connect to it, you can't administer it. Even if you go on site, if you're not allowed to turn the machine on and look at it, it's pointless. That said, there are two options I can think of right off:

• Get a contract drawn up by ANOTHER lawyer, stating that you will only open such files on the computer that the client allows, and also be allowed access to the system related files, and that you promise not to print/give out/tell anyone about anything you see (a fairly standard NDA)
• Bill him an exorbitant rate per hour, and have him read you error messages over the phone one at a time, and tell him what to enter/click on/etc. If you are billing at a good rate, and it takes you two hours to walk him through a five-minute error.....:)

The most common action taken in circumstances like this is a Non-disclosure Agreement or a Confidentiality Agreement. It is a common contract in many business operations. I am surprised that this person wants confidentiality and didn't have the form prepared and ask you to sign it.

If this person is a lawyer, s/he should be aware of this.
I don't see how you could administer anything without access. The lawyer has the responsibility to put the form together and there are samples you can download on the internet or you could probably get one at an office supply store. The lawyers responsibility.

Don't do it at all!

I would go for this option. It it's your lawyer then I wouldn't risk all your legal disputes being messed up because an NDA was worded incorrectly or you used some silly method to try to administer a machine without seeing some files.
I've worked for a law firm in the past and sometimes aspects of the firm represented different sides of a legal situation (usually large contracts) and the lawyers and support staff had to be locked out of the other side's case files -- but some IT staff (myself included) could still see everything. There's no way I would use a law firm when I had that kind of access to its data.

Right! I think I like this advice best, although all of it was good. Charging a lawyer an extra high fee for support,.. just rings true to me. It's a small karmic balance restored in the universe.

So, basically, Ill just wipe my hands clean of it, and if the guy needs support he can call over the phone and get walked through the steps.

Thanks again.

Just don't be surprised in case nothing will be found..some people just can't handle reality as it is and always look for non-existing problems and explanations and this is bad because it creates victims and set-ups..and is waste of time! But when stuff happens vice versa they don't treat is as something non-normal.

You give him one for work, while at work.
He can keep his at home.

If you are the attorney's client, there are all kinds of potential professional red flags and possible conflicts of interest or breaches of attorney-client privilege (on his part) here, in that he is also your client.

I think you should view this arrangement very cautiously and make sure all possible eventualities are laid out in a written contract.

Thanks for all the advice. its a tough nut to crack.

What we have done is set him up with an outside IT support company. This was the easiest way around the mountain of law surrounding us working on our own attourney's laptop.

That sounds like a graceful way to deal with this. Nice.