Law Commons^™

Reconsidering The Corporate Attorney-Client Privilege: A Response To The Compelled-Voluntary Waiver Paradox, Lonnie T. Brown, Jr.

Scholarly Works

The Department of Justice (“DOJ”) has adopted guidelines that seem to make waiver of the attorney-client privilege and work product protection a prerequisite for being deemed “cooperative,” a significant designation that carries with it the prospect for more favorable penal treatment. In addition, the United States Sentencing Commission underscored the potential importance of such waivers by approving an amendment to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines in 2004 that, under certain circumstances, makes privilege waiver a factor in assessing a corporation's “culpability score,” which is used in determining the appropriate sentencing range.

This perceived ever-present concern has caused many corporate executives and …

Eliminating Political Maneuvering: A Light In The Tunnel For The Government Attorney-Client Privilege, Patricia E. Salkin, Allyson Phillips

Scholarly Works

The long recognized common-law privilege afforded to certain conversations between attorneys and their clients has been the subject of troubling opinions when the lawyer and client are high ranking government officials. In a series of opinions from the 7th, 8th and D.C. Circuit Courts of Appeals, the courts refused to recognize the existence of the attorney-client privilege for the government actors under the circumstances surrounding the cases. However, recent opinions from the 2nd Circuit state that these other courts were simply wrong, setting the stage perhaps, for the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve the issue. Whether this privilege is equally …

The Story Of Upjohn Co. V. United States: One Man's Journey To Extend Lawyer-Client Confidentiality, And The Social Forces That Affected It, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The attorney-client privilege protects information a client provides an attorney in confidence for the purpose of securing legal advice. But suppose the client is not a person but a corporation and can only speak through its agents and employees. What then are the contours of the privilege? If the corporation's attorney asks an employee for information relating to pending litigation or other legal matters, is the conversation privileged? Some courts said that no communications to a corporate attorney were privileged unless they came from members of the corporate control group, loosely those people who had authority to direct the attorney's …