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ARTICLE · 14 DECEMBER 2011

Protecting Privilege: How Safe Are Your E-Mails?

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If your client gives you his business e-mail address to communicate with him about his personal legal matters, how sure are you that those e-mails are privileged and immune from disclosure?

CanadaPrivacy
Jasmine Akbarali
Jasmine Akbarali
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Originally published in The Lawyers Weekly, January 29, 2010

If your client gives you his business e-mail address to communicate with him about his personal legal matters, how sure are you that those e-mails are privileged and immune from disclosure? The answer, it seems, is "it depends."

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia recently weighed it/on this issue in Convertino v. United States Department of Justice, et al., 2009 U.S. Dist. Lexis 115050. Convertino, an Assistant United States Attorney, brought a claim against the U.S. Department of Justice (DO J), alleging it had wilfully and intentionally disclosed information about him to a reporter in violation of the Privacy Act.

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