The common interest doctrine can sometimes protect as privileged communications between separately represented clients. But litigants seeking the doctrine’s protection face many hurdles and often fail....more
Last week’s Privilege Point emphasized the difficulty of successfully asserting the common interest doctrine’s application. But in the right circumstances, even litigation adversaries can successfully protect some of their...more
In Ansur America Insurance Co. v. Borland, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois addressed a discovery dispute involving claims brought by Ansur America Insurance Co. against the law firm Ansur...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
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
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
The American Bottling Co. v. Repole, C.A. No. N19C-03-048 AML CCLD (Del. Super. May 12, 2020) - Delaware courts will apply the common interest doctrine when two parties, represented by counsel, exchange privileged...more
How PE firms can minimize attorney-client privilege risks after Argos Holdings Inc. and PetSmart Inc. v. Wilmington Trust N.A. PE firms face a variety of litigation and deal-related attorney-client privilege challenges...more
To balance the relative information inequality between an insurance company and its reinsurers, insurance companies often provide claim-related documents to their reinsurers. When some of those claim-related documents are...more
Imagine you are representing an individual who has been subpoenaed for testimony as part of the government’s investigation of her employer. ...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
The Federal Circuit reinforced limits on its own jurisdiction by rejecting an appeal brought by intervenor Anthony Levandowski in the much-publicized case Waymo LLC v. Uber Technologies, Inc., et al., No. 17-cv-00939-WHA...more
Why would any lawyer think that his Joint Defense Agreement, entered into with a co-defendant, was protected from production by the attorney-client privilege? Well, the lawyer for one of the Defendants In AP Atlantic, Inc.,...more
In civil litigation, parties frequently communicate with consultants, tax advisors, friends, family, and others concerning the subject matter of the litigation, and such communications raise issues regarding the possible...more
Most lawyers are familiar with the general rule that a client waives the attorney-client privilege by disclosing the privileged information to third parties. The common interest doctrine, however, provides an exception to...more
Brief Summary - The "common interest doctrine" generally protects attorney-client communications, even if such communications are disclosed to a third party, as long as the third party shares a common legal interest with...more
On June 9, 2016, the New York Court of Appeals issued a stark reminder to transactional lawyers: no matter how much “common interest” two parties may have with respect to a transaction, the common interest doctrine may not...more
In This Issue: - Attorney-Client Privilege/Work Product Decisions: ..Decisions Protecting Against Disclosure ..Decisions Ordering Disclosure Other - Spoliation Decisions: ..Spoliation Sanctions...more
Last month, a federal court in Iowa handed down a decision holding that neither work product nor attorney-client nor the common interest doctrine shield legal advice and analysis from production in discovery once it has been...more