We were on vacation. Well, I was on vacation in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where my wife had just finished doing the Ironman race. Lisa was mostly recovering while the kids and I did fun things.

One afternoon, we were in a restaurant called something like The Pie House. Of course, it served mostly pie.

While we waited on our pie, we were eavesdropping on the conversation taking place in the booth right behind us. They couldn’t tell we were listening because the benches had high backs, and you couldn’t see the people in the next booth.

The conversation we overheard involved a mother, father, and at least one kid. They caught our attention when the kid mentioned “the guy from the Klan.” Our ears perked up since we had just driven by the property formerly owned by a white supremacist group. The group lost the property as the result of a creative lawsuit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center. We had the Klan on our minds.

We loved our time in North Idaho, but that whole white supremacist thing is pretty disturbing. Just as an aside: at one point, we went on a horseback ride, and we straddled the property line next to Mark Fuhrman’s land. He retired there after the O.J. Simpson trial.

So what’s my point today?

You inform your staff about confidentiality. You express to them the importance of keeping secrets. You tell them that it’s not just names they need to keep to themselves but fact patterns as well. They can’t just omit the names and tell their spouses or friends about what happened at the office. The fact patterns, which are usually weird if they’re bothering to tell the story, can be enough to identify the parties.

You’re doing an excellent job of protecting your clients’ information, and you’re asking each new team member to sign a form indicating that he or she has been trained on confidentiality and understands those obligations as an employee of your firm.

Then what happens?

Your employees go to lunch—two of them—together.

Where?

Maybe The Pie House?

Yep, they’re having a nice lunch, and they’re talking to each other about a case. They aren’t telling their friends, their family, or anyone else who isn’t part of the team. They’re keeping it to themselves.

Of course, while they eat that delicious piece of apple pie a la mode, they’re also telling the people listening in the next booth. They’re telling those terrible eavesdroppers who just can’t help themselves.

Oops.