Trumped – When Solicitor And Client Privilege Must Submit To A Higher Purpose

The entitlement of a client to keep confidential its communications with legal advisors is often considered sacrosanct. Without it, the process of taking advice would be rendered more complex and dealing with any kind of dispute almost impossible.

The right however is not absolute, as events currently unfolding in the US legal and political sphere dramatically remind us. Confidential exchanges between President Donald Trump and his former attorney Michael Cohen were recovered by the US Department of Justice, leading to Cohen's guilty plea to campaign finance irregularities and other charges.

What is legal privilege?

Legal professional privilege is a shorthand expression to cover information that a court or similar body may not compel a party to produce, even if it would be relevant to a matter before it. It can be divided into two sub-categories: legal advice privilege and litigation privilege. Both types of privilege attract the same protection from disclosure,