This post explains an exception to the attorney-client privilege that is recognized in many jurisdictions to allow minority owners of LLCs and corporations to attempt to obtain the privileged communications of their LLC or...more
This presentation will take a detailed look at the attorney-client privilege between a trustee and its attorney, the scope of the privilege, the fiduciary exception that would allow beneficiaries to review communications and...more
Under what is called the "fiduciary exception," the law essentially deems a fiduciary's beneficiary to be the fiduciary’s lawyer’s actual "client." This normally enables the beneficiary to access communications between the...more
No corporate lawyer wants to get drawn into a nasty litigation between an entity’s owners. But the reality is that corporate and general counsel often find themselves unwittingly ensnared in business divorce cases. Sometimes...more
On May 23, 2022, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania held that the fiduciary exception to the attorney-client privilege and attorney work product doctrine is consistent with Pennsylvania law. This ruling was highly anticipated...more
Under old English trust law, courts gave trust beneficiaries access to otherwise privileged communications between the trust fiduciary and its lawyer advising him or her on trust administration matters. The main case bringing...more
This post explains the rules that apply to Illinois corporations and business entities organized in other jurisdictions. In most jurisdictions, shareholders and LLC members generally do not have the right to obtain...more
A most basic precept of the law is the attorney-client privilege. A litigant being able to speak freely and completely with his or her counsel without the fear of the conversation being revealed has been a cornerstone of...more
A Massachusetts district court recently ordered defendants in an ERISA fiduciary breach case to produce certain communications with their in-house and outside counsel, rejecting defendants’ argument that the communications...more
In a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court case, In re: Estate of William K. McAleer, the state high court addressed the issue of whether Pennsylvania law recognizes the fiduciary exception to attorney-client privilege....more
On January 30, 2020, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve) issued a final rule (Rule) that revises the Federal Reserve’s regulations related to determinations of whether a first company (an...more
When a plan administrator is attending to a benefit claim and thinks it is time to call in an attorney, are those discussions privileged and protected from disclosure to claimants? In this week’s blog, we take a look at some...more
A federal district court in Ohio recently attempted to shed some light on when internal communications between an ERISA plan administrator and its in-house counsel are discoverable and when they are protected by the...more
A federal district court in Ohio concluded that internal communications between a plan administrator and in-house counsel about a beneficiary’s first-level benefit claim remained protected by the attorney-client privilege,...more
On July 27, 2017, Vice Chancellor Joseph R. Slights III of the Delaware Court of Chancery found that stockholder plaintiffs had not satisfied their burden of showing “good cause” under the Garner fiduciary exception to the...more
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois denied a motion to compel production of attorney-client privileged documents on April 25, 2017, in connection with the Section 36(b) lawsuit Chill v. Calamos...more
Regulators Demand Third-Party Risk Management - While third-party risk management has been a required component of an effective enterprise risk management program for many years, the topic is receiving elevated attention...more
In Kenny v. Pacific Inv. Mgm’t Co. LLC (W.D. Wash.), a federal judge recently ruled that a mutual fund’s independent trustees must produce certain documents that the trustees had redacted or withheld based on attorney-client...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Adding to the body of conflicting authority on the scope of the attorney-client privilege in ERISA lawsuits, a district court has found that the fiduciary exception to attorney-client privilege applies to...more
In its never-ending effort to thwart senior investor fraud, FINRA recently proposed a new rule to the SEC. This proposal would require member firms to obtain the name of a trusted contact person for the customer’s account....more
While attorneys provide legal advice to their clients, they are sometimes the recipients of such advice from their own counsel, including in-house firm counsel. Agreeing with recent decisions by the highest courts of Georgia...more
In Stock v. Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis, 2016 WL 3556655 (N.Y. App. Div. 2016), the First Judicial Department of the New York Appellate Division upheld, in a case involving a former law firm client seeking to sue the...more
Disqualification — Substantially Related Matters — Waiver of Conflict by Lack of Diligence in Seeking Disqualification - State of Minnesota, et al v. 3M Company, Hennepin County (Minn.), Court File No. 27-CV-10-28862...more
In-house counsel often communicate with corporate management under the assumption that these communications are protected by the attorney-client privilege— absent some type of unusual and extraordinary circumstance, such as...more
The attorney-client privilege is a cornerstone of the legal practice. The privilege protects the confidentiality of communications between a client and an attorney from disclosure to a third party when the communications are...more