Bar Exam Toolbox Podcast Episode 204: Listen and Learn -- Scope of Discovery and the Work-Product Privilege
Internal Investigations in the Asia-Pacific Region
Cyberside Chats: Preserving Legal Privilege After a Cybersecurity Incident
Jones Day Presents: Strategies for Dealing with the IRS: The IRS Examination
Day 15 of One Month to Better Investigations and Reporting-the Parameters of Privileges
Florida’s Sixth District Court of Appeal (6th DCA), which considers appeals from trial courts in an area running from Orange County down to Collier County, recently confirmed that discovery privileges apply to communications...more
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 described a court’s review of a lawyer’s conversation with a witness and its conclusion that none of the conversation deserved the heightened opinion work product protection. LaBudde v. Phoenix...more
Lawyers and non-lawyers frequently train their corporate colleagues. Determining any applicable attorney-client privilege or work product protections can implicate a number of variables....more
Not everything stamped “privileged” is safe from prying eyes. The Pennsylvania Superior Court recently ruled that interview notes compiled by a sorority’s leadership after a tragic incident were not shielded by...more
Unlike the absolute attorney-client privilege (and the absolute or nearly absolute opinion work product doctrine protection), a litigant can overcome the adversary’s fact work product protection if it “shows that it has...more
Outside and in-house lawyers may of course normally claim privilege protection for their investigation-related communications, as long as they were primarily motivated by the need for legal advice. Depending on the...more
Numerous Privilege Points have described cases concluding that advertising agencies are outside privilege protection but inside work product protection (although they normally cannot themselves create protected work product)....more
The differing waiver rules governing the fragile attorney-client privilege and the robust work product doctrine protection predictably create stark differences when family members communicate with each other. This type of...more
Some readers have asked why Privilege Points have only rarely focused on work product issues in the insurance context. In addition to the sometimes dramatic differences between states’ handling of this issue, a recent case...more
With the growth of litigation funding as a mechanism for financing litigation, companies interviewing and ultimately selecting a funder inevitably share work product with them. In such circumstances, courts must assess (1)...more
One thing leaders of organizations routinely recognize is that “you never know what tomorrow will bring.” Another common slogan is “life happens.” If “life” happens to bring the organization a situation that could expose the...more
Courts have been scrambling to catch up with the fast and sometimes unpredictable evolution of lawyers’ use of generative AI. Many if not most courts require lawyers to advise them if they relied on AI in preparing filings...more
In Stuart v. County of Riverside, 2024 WL 3086634, at *3 (C.D. Cal. Jun. 14, 2024), the District Court found a relationship between work product designations and triggering of the common-law duty to preserve....more
Some courts understandably conclude that the anticipation of litigation that can assure work product protection also requires the litigant to impose a litigation hold on pertinent documents. Perhaps that is not a perfect...more
This is the tenth installment in a series of articles intended to provide the reader with a very high-level overview of the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act of 1970 and the Occupational Safety and Health...more
Communication during a data breach is challenging in the best of circumstances, and control of information, especially early in a breach response, is critical. Below are some DOs and DON’Ts for communicating during a data...more
With the recent wave of ransomware and other security incidents, it is now more important than ever for impacted organizations to have a thorough understanding of each element of a proper data breach response. That includes...more
Normally a third party does not have standing to challenge a document subpoena. But what if the subpoena seeks discovery of the third party’s privileged or work product-protected documents in the subpoena target’s possession?...more
Last week’s Privilege Point described an S.D.N.Y. opinion rejecting privilege and work product claims for a document that on its face did not contain legal advice or any allusion to or analysis of anticipated litigation....more
Last week’s Privilege Point described two cases finding that successful plaintiffs had waived work product protection covering their invoices and other attorney’s fees billing documents because they sought attorney’s fees as...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In its seminal decision, Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, the Supreme Court held that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is tantamount to discrimination on the basis of...more
Under what is called the American Rule, winning litigants normally pay their own attorneys’ fees. But in some situations, they can seek recovery of those fees from the losing adversary. Not surprisingly, such efforts...more
As anyone faced with discovery requests knows, one of the most important parts of producing documents is determining what documents are subject to attorney-client privilege or work product doctrine and must therefore be...more
Recently, in Lewis v. Crochet et al., the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected an attempt by a plaintiff to use the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege to compel two lawyers’...more