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
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
New York’s highest court has rejected an attempt to expand the state’s common-interest doctrine, and reinstated the New York rule that the doctrine only applies in the context of actual or threatened litigation. Citing the...more
Expanding the law in New York governing the attorney client privilege, New York’s intermediate appellate court held last week that anticipated or pending litigation is not a necessary prerequisite to invoking the common...more
Ordinarily, when a communication between an attorney and her client is disclosed to a third party, that communication loses its privileged status. The common interest privilege operates as an exception to that rule that...more