The one thing lawyers absolutely hate with a passion are surprises.

Lawyers are not real spontaneous people, for a very good reason -- it's nearly impossible to represent your client with any degree of proficiency if (a) you don't know what you're doing, or (b) you don't know what your client is doing.

It's a lose-lose situation, and it's exactly where new Bellevue solicitor Tom McDermott is finding himself.

It became quite clear this week that Bellevue has not been supplying him with the necessary information -- little stuff like ordinances and codes that determine the legal procedure for conducting government business.

They also, apparently, are not informing him of all the relevant facts.

There are, unfortunately, some clients who think they know more than their lawyer, and these clients will edit the information they provide. Inevitably, it comes back to bite them because the bottom line is that they never know more than their lawyer, and the missing information ultimately comes out at the worst possible time. Like in a public meeting. In front of lots of people. And reporters.

It may be time for McDermott to have one of those heart-to-heart talks that lawyers sometimes have to have with their clients. Legal representation is not a democracy. The law sets out what decisions the client gets to make, and the rest of the game needs to be played by the lawyer's rules -- and that means getting your solicitor all the information he needs to do his job.

We don't want to accuse anyone in Bellevue government of deliberately withholding information that the solicitor should have. It is, we are sad to say, entirely possible that the people in charge really do not remember what laws and resolutions they approved just weeks or months ago. In that case, McDermott may have to get used to surprises for a while.