Maybe(IANAL)...<p>It all depends on the details of the dead man switch.<p>The lawyers wouldn&#x27;t be risking much if they have standing instructions to call his brother&#x2F;sister&#x2F;mother in the event that they can&#x27;t reach him for 48 hours(or any other arbitrary time period) and that person updates social media while an agent in a different jurisdiction watches, waiting for the signal to release.<p>Everyone that they know about and can verify has a connection to him has a plausible explanation for their actions. A lawyer should contact a client&#x27;s family if s&#x2F;he can&#x27;t be reached. It&#x27;s perfectly reasonable for a relative of a missing person to use social media to put out the word.<p>Depending on how incendiary the withheld information is, that may be enough of an incentive for law enforcement to be polite.