A California appellate court recently decided that an employee’s email messages to an attorney about suing her employer could be used against her at trial. The messages were not protected by the attorney-client privilege, because the employee knowingly sent the messages from her work email account. This unusual legal result was made possible because the employer had a written policy that clearly stated messages sent on the employer’s electronic communications system were not private.

Holmes v. Petrovich Development Company, LLC. If you have not recently done so, now is the time to update your electronic communications policy to notify employees that messages sent on your computers and electronic devices are not private.