Page 4 - Privilege Point News Today

Last week's Privilege Point addressed a case in which defendant Holland & Knight could withhold the names of clients to whom it provided advice allegedly similar to advice plaintiffs...

Last week's Privilege Point addressed a D.C. federal court's application of the Illinois "control group" privilege standard in a transferred case. In South Capitol Bridgebuilders v....

All but a handful of states apply what is called the Upjohn privilege standard – under which the attorney-client privilege can protect a corporation's lawyer's communication with any...

Last week's Privilege Point described a New York state court's unsurprising articulation of the nearly universally-applied "primary purpose" standard, and listing of the usual type of...

Every lawyer knows that attorney-client privilege protection depends on a communication’s "primary" or "predominant" purpose. A handful of courts have been inching toward a more...

Because work product protection applies only when the creator is in or reasonably anticipates litigation, a litigant asserting that protection must know exactly when that occurred. In...

Most states have adopted some variation of what is called the "spousal privilege" or "marital privilege." Those usually appear in statutes or rules, and dramatically vary from state to...

Last week's Privilege Point addressed courts' differing interpretations of the work product rule's "anticipation" element. Fed. R. Civ. P. (26)(b)(3)'s and parallel state rules'...

To embed, copy and paste the code into your website or blog: As in other areas, a privilege analysis should always start with a choice of law assessment. In federal courts, federal common law governs federal question cases privilege issues. In diversity cases, many federal courts reflexively apply their host jurisdictions privilege law. This is wrong. In Parimal v. Manitex International, Inc., the court refreshingly recognized that in "resolving [whether Connecticut or Illinois privilege law a...

To embed, copy and paste the code into your website or blog: Understandably based on fairness notions, the subject matter waiver doctrine prevents litigants from explicitly or impliedly using privileged communications as a "sword" while simultaneously asserting the privilege as a "shield" to prevent discovery of related communications. As with many privilege concepts, applying the subject matter waiver doctrine can involve subtle analyses. In Strand v. USANA Health Sciences, Inc., Case No. 2:1...