This post explains an exception to the attorney-client privilege that is recognized in many jurisdictions to allow minority owners of LLCs and corporations to attempt to obtain the privileged communications of their LLC or...more
Under what is called the "fiduciary exception," the law essentially deems a fiduciary's beneficiary to be the fiduciary’s lawyer’s actual "client." This normally enables the beneficiary to access communications between the...more
No corporate lawyer wants to get drawn into a nasty litigation between an entity’s owners. But the reality is that corporate and general counsel often find themselves unwittingly ensnared in business divorce cases. Sometimes...more
Under old English trust law, courts gave trust beneficiaries access to otherwise privileged communications between the trust fiduciary and its lawyer advising him or her on trust administration matters. The main case bringing...more
This post explains the rules that apply to Illinois corporations and business entities organized in other jurisdictions. In most jurisdictions, shareholders and LLC members generally do not have the right to obtain...more
A federal district court in Ohio concluded that internal communications between a plan administrator and in-house counsel about a beneficiary’s first-level benefit claim remained protected by the attorney-client privilege,...more
On July 27, 2017, Vice Chancellor Joseph R. Slights III of the Delaware Court of Chancery found that stockholder plaintiffs had not satisfied their burden of showing “good cause” under the Garner fiduciary exception to the...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Adding to the body of conflicting authority on the scope of the attorney-client privilege in ERISA lawsuits, a district court has found that the fiduciary exception to attorney-client privilege applies to...more
In Stock v. Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis, 2016 WL 3556655 (N.Y. App. Div. 2016), the First Judicial Department of the New York Appellate Division upheld, in a case involving a former law firm client seeking to sue the...more