Attorney Client Privilege With In House Counsel In Mecklenburg
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Identify privileged documents (including notes of privileged conversations) as such, using headers such as “privileged and confidential attorney-client communication” or “privileged and confidential prepared at the request of counsel.” In addition, maintain dates and names of participants, meetings, and distributions ...
If the purpose is legal advice, the communication is privileged if it's confidential and between lawyer and client. On the other hand, if the lawyer is acting as a business negotiator or advisor, the communication probably is not privileged. An in-house lawyer fulfills multiple roles!
Therefore, controversy has emerged over the scope of the attorney–client privilege between the counsel and the president and vice president, namely with John Dean of Watergate notoriety. It is clear, however, that the privilege does not apply in strictly personal matters.
Although historically courts held there was no privilege, more recently courts—including one California court—have concluded that communications between attorneys and their firm's in-house counsel are privileged.
For those lawyers who are employees of one company, they are not considered to have a private practice or a public practice. These lawyers are called “in-house counsel.” That means they are directly employed by one client and are typically prevented from being able to take on any other clients.
The attorney-client privilege does not apply to every communication with an attorney. For the privilege to exist, the communication must be to, from, or with an attorney, and intended to be confidential. In addition, the communication must be for the purpose of requesting or receiving legal advice.
Email communications are not covered by the privilege simply because an OGC attorney is copied on the email. The privilege only applies if the communication has a substantial purpose of seeking legal advice from an OGC attorney.
Common interest privilege, also known as the joint defense privilege, is an extension of attorney-client privilege that protects the compelled disclosure of communications between two or more parties and/or their respective counsel when the parties are allied in a common legal interest.
