Courts Affirm Privilege Protection For Intracorporate Communications

In most states (Illinois being the main exception), attorney-client privilege protection extends to communications between a corporation's lawyers and (1) employees with facts the lawyers need, regardless of the employee's place in the hierarchy, and (2) employees with a "need to know" the lawyers' advice about those facts. Most courts also protect ancillary communications that support the corporation's request for and receipt of legal advice.

In Moffatt v. Wazana Brothers International, the court confirmed that the privilege protects "communications relaying legal advice provided by corporate counsel among nonattorney corporate employees who share responsibility 'for the subject matter underlying the consultation.'" Civ. A. No. 14-1881, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 151326, at *4 (E.D. Pa. Oct. 24, 2014) (citation omitted). Corporations frequently rely on this principle when their adversaries challenge privilege protection for documents whose privilege log entries do not