Legal professional privilege, like other forms of professional
privilege (for example doctor-patient relationships) is a
fundamental right in systems like ours. It is designed to ensure a
person can communicate freely with their lawyer, in order to obtain
full and effective advice, without the fear of things being said in
confidence getting dragged into the light and used against
them.
There are two concepts that go hand in hand in this protected
relationship: 'privilege' and 'confidence'.
Privilege refers to the protection one has from having to disclose
information that is protected. Confidentiality, simply means
information is secret or private.
Why this distinction is important is because people tend to
conflate these issues. Documents or information will only be
protected by privilege if they are also confidential. It does not
work in reverse where a document that would ordinarily be protected
by privilege (like a solicitor's letter of advice to a
