What's the Tea in L&E? Can You Share An Employee's Medical Info?
In many cases, clients tend to place their trust, and often their livelihood, in the hands of their attorney. This expectation can be easily traced back to the attorney-client privilege, one of the oldest common-law...more
Introduction - Your company is under investigation by the government. As part of the investigation, the government subpoenaed an employee for testimony. The employee retained a lawyer (separate from your company’s outside...more
The attorney-client privilege is an old and well-known evidentiary privilege. It fosters candor between attorney and client, protects confidential information from being revealed to others, and ensures that the attorney can...more
On numerous occasions, this Blog has examined the attorney-client privilege and the attorney work product doctrine.1 Today, we take another opportunity to explore the contours of these privileges....more
Last week's Privilege Point described two courts taking the opposite position on whether the common interest doctrine could protect from waiver otherwise privileged communications among common interest agreement participants...more
The common interest doctrine can sometimes protect from the otherwise harsh privilege waiver impact normally triggered by the sharing of privileged communications among separately represented clients. Courts take widely...more
The common interest doctrine sometimes allows separately represented clients to avoid the normal privilege waiver implications when sharing their privileged communications. Unfortunately for lawyers hoping for certainty,...more
Under the common interest doctrine, separately represented clients can avoid the normal waiver implications of sharing privileged communications by entering into a contractual arrangement. In Energy Policy Advocates v....more
Parties to a lawsuit often find themselves on the "same side of the courtroom" as other entities or individuals. In these instances, where a party is one of multiple (or many) co-plaintiffs or co-defendants, it is often...more
The common interest doctrine can sometimes protect communications between separately represented clients that would otherwise trigger a waiver – if those clients share an identical (or nearly identical, in some courts) legal...more
The widely misunderstood common interest doctrine occasionally allows separately represented clients to avoid the normal disastrous waiver implications of sharing privileged communications. Among other requirements, most...more
Corporate parents' in-house lawyers' joint representations of the parent and its wholly-owned subsidiaries should cinch their communications' attorney-client privilege protection. Additional grounds for such privilege...more
The unpredictable and frequently rejected common interest doctrine can sometimes avoid what would otherwise be a waiver when separately represented litigants share privileged communications or documents. Many clients and even...more
In 10x Genomics, Inc. v. Celsee, Inc., 1-19-cv-00862 (DDE 2020-12-04, Order) (Colm F. Connolly), the District Court ordered the defendant to produce documents and give testimony about communications between defendant and its...more
The attorney-client privilege protects communications for the purpose of obtaining legal advice between attorney and client. It applies not only to communications with outside counsel but also with in-house attorneys who are...more
Last week’s Privilege Point described a favorable Delaware state court decision finding that a post-reorganization trust and its largest stakeholder could rely on the common interest doctrine to protect their communications –...more
In an opinion issued in May 2020, the Tennessee Court of Appeals provided guidance regarding the application of the common interest privilege and its impact on defamation and invasion of privacy claims within the employment...more
In a January 14, 2020, order, the Northern District of Illinois granted in part and denied in part, a plaintiff’s motion to compel the production of documents withheld as privileged. The court found that an email between the...more
Imagine you are representing an individual who has been subpoenaed for testimony as part of the government’s investigation of her employer. ...more
The NC Business Court delivered a full Opinion last week on attorney-client privilege in Technetics Group Daytona, Inc. v. N2 Biomedical, LLC, 2018 NCBC 115. It’s on the subject of the scope of attorney-client privilege...more
Most courts apply the common interest doctrine only in litigation-related circumstances, although a few courts extend the doctrine to transactional contexts. In BlackRock Balanced Capital Portfolio (Fi) v. Deutsche Bank...more
The common interest doctrine can avoid the normal waiver implications of disclosing privileged communications to third parties. But some courts do not recognize the doctrine at all, and most courts impose various requirements...more
On December 7, 2017, an Illinois appellate court held that co-defendants in a case who agree to share information pursuant to their common interest in defeating their litigation opponent do not waive either the...more
The common interest doctrine provides that, if two or more separately represented entities with a common legal, factual, or strategic interest exchange information with each other and their respective lawyers, a communication...more
A Joint-Defense Agreement (JDA) can be an extremely valuable tool in coordinating defenses against pending or impending prosecution, as it formalizes the creation of a zone of privilege in which co-defendants and their...more