Privilege Considerations When Defending Corporate Clients

Although the attorney-client privilege applies to in-house counsel equally as outside counsel, courts scrutinize the privilege more carefully when it involves in-house counsel

When defending corporate clients, one of the primary issues to tackle is identifying when a corporate document contains privileged information. This can be difficult for two reasons. First, many corporate employees mistakenly believe that as long as in-house counsel is included in an email or a document it is privileged. This results in a host of communications that on the surface may appear privileged but under greater security are not. Second, in-house counsel often wear multiple hats, making it difficult to determine when a communication contains legal versus business advice.