Part 1 of this article provided a state-of-the-law overview for when companies, facing high-profile legal challenges, hire public relations firms to work with the company’s lawyers on messaging. This overview noted that courts typically take one of two approaches to analyze whether attorney-client privilege protection applies to lawyer-PR firm communications: the necessity approach (determining whether the PR agent’s involvement in the attorney-client communication was necessary for the client to receive effective legal advice) and the functional equivalent employee approach (determining whether the PR agent developed a long-term track record working for the same client, such that the agent can be considered the equivalent of the client’s employees for privilege analysis purposes).

Originally published in Law360 - February 4, 2019.