It must be a client’s nightmare to find his lawyer is feeding information to the police. And over the years, a number of lawyers have paid a high price for doing just that.

The news of the death of Melbourne lawyer Joseph Acquaro, shot to death near his ice cream and cake shop, highlights the dangers. Acquaro had fallen out with some very high-profile Melbourne faces. When news filtered through to the police last June that there was a A$200,000 (£109,000) contract out on him, detectives went to see a man to warn him that, if anything happened to Acquaro, he would be high on their suspect list.

There is, in fact, nothing to suggest this man was involved in the shooting of the lawyer, thought to have been both a police informer and a man who leaked trade secrets to newspapers.

One American lawyer who fell out with Al Capone (pictured) was Edward O’Hare, not to be confused with his son, the flying ace who had an airport named after him. O’Hare snr was instrumental in providing Internal Revenue Service agent Frank Wilson with information about Capone’s tax affairs which eventually led to the racketeer’s imprisonment.

When Capone was due for release, O’Hare took to carrying a semi-automatic pistol. It did him no good. He was shot and killed on 8 November 1939 while driving his car – it crashed into a roadside post, while the killers were lost in traffic. No arrest was ever made.

In the 1940s, Californian mobster Mickey Cohen’s lawyer Samuel Rummel was shot in his backyard at a time when he was negotiating his value as a witness.

In 1991, Canadian Sidney Leithman, lawyer to the cream of the Montreal underworld, was playing a double game and was shot dead for his pains.

On the other hand, Lester Brien, who in 1979 refused to give evidence about his clients to a drug commission in Queensland and served a six-month sentence for contempt, ended up as something of an underworld hero.

He recalled: ‘I was fortunate, I suppose, in that I went in in the best possible circumstances. That is, I went in, from the crim population’s point of view, for failing to give someone up – almost unheard of among solicitors. So I was seen as what they called “staunch”.’

James Morton is a writer and former criminal defence solicitor

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