By Jeffrey M. Monhait Are communications between attorneys and their retained experts discoverable? For now, the answer appears to be no, as a divided Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently affirmed a Superior Court decision “creat[ing] a bright-line rule denying discovery of…
Blog Archives
Prohibiting Discovery of Attorney-Expert Communications
Tagged with: attorney work product, attorney-client privilege, attorney-expert communication, Litigation Practice
Posted in Litigation
Posted in Litigation
Attorney-Client Privilege & Corporate Dissolution
By Hayes Hunt and Arthur Fritzinger Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas Senior Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr.’s recent ruling in Red Vision Systems v. National Real Estate Information Services, No. 14-0411 (Comm. Pls. Feb. 26, 2014), that the attorney-client…
Tagged with: attorney-client privilege, Corporate Counsel, Corporate Law, Red Vision
Posted in Privilege
Posted in Privilege
Maintaining Privilege With Consultants – Practical Guide
By Hayes Hunt and Arthur Fritzinger Previously, we talked about the legal standards applied to claims of attorney-client privilege between a company’s general counsel and outside consultants. Now, let’s talk about practical tips for maintaining that privilege. We explained the…
Tagged with: attorney-client privilege, attorney-expert communication, Corporate Compliance, Corporate Law
Posted in Corporate Compliance
Posted in Corporate Compliance
Privileged Communications With Outside Consultants
By Hayes Hunt and Arthur Fritzinger Penn State University recently decided to waive attorney-client privilege and cooperate in the criminal prosecutions of certain former employees. Obviously, the former employees have attempted to assert privilege to exclude potentially incriminating statements. How…
Upjohn Warning Update
By Hayes Hunt and Michael Zabel By now, the concept of Upjohn warnings should be familiar to any counsel, whether in-house or external, who represents a corporation’s interests in an internal investigation. In a nutshell, an Upjohn warning is derived…
Tagged with: attorney-client privilege, attorney-expert communication, Corporate Counsel, Corporate Law, Upjohn v. United States
Posted in Prosecution & Defense
Posted in Prosecution & Defense
Swartz Suicide: Duties of Prosecutors and Defense Attorneys
By Hayes Hunt and Calli Varner Aaron Swartz, 26 year-old co-founder of Reddit and long-time activist against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), committed suicide. Mr. Swartz killed himself weeks before his trial for charges related to his access to MIT’s computer…
Evidence Needed For Crime-Fraud Exception to Attorney-Client Privilege
By Hayes Hunt and Michael Zabel How much evidence is enough to establish the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege? With its recent opinion in In re Grand Jury, Nos. 12-1697 & 12-2878 (Dec. 11, 2012), the U.S. Court of Appeals…
Tagged with: attorney work product, attorney-client privilege, Crime-Fraud Exception
Posted in Prosecution & Defense
Posted in Prosecution & Defense
Fired for “Liking” – Social Media Use at Your Job
By Hayes Hunt and Jillian Thornton Giving your opinion on politics or complaining about the boss to your friends via Facebook is so commonplace and rampant that few people probably stop to think about the consequences of their posting. Less…
Tagged with: attorney-client privilege, Facebook, free speech, government workers, Hayes Hunt, privacy, private company, Social Media Law
Posted in Social Media & Law
Posted in Social Media & Law
Predictive Coding – Clawing Back Privileged Documents
By Hayes Hunt and Jillian R. Thornton With regard to privilege review, lawyers utilizing predictive coding of ESI need to be especially vigilant not to inadvertently produce privileged documents. Although predictive coding can be used to assess privilege as well…
Tagged with: attorney work product, attorney-client privilege, Claw back, Discovery, inadvertent disclosure, Litigation, Litigation Practice, privileged documents
Posted in Litigation
Posted in Litigation
When to Appeal Privilege Claims – State and Federal Differences
Contributed by Thomas Wilkinson, Jr. and Issa Mikel In Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Harris, No. 8 EAP 20098 (Pa. 2011) (McCaffrey, J.), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reaffirmed its prior rule that orders overruling claims of privilege are immediately appealable as…
