U.S. Courts News Reporter
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A lawyer’s legal advice is privileged. A court cannot order the lawyer or the client to disclose it. But a lawyer’s nonlegal advice is not privileged. What happens when advice is partly legal and partly nonlegal and the two parts cannot be untangled? In such dual-purpose situations, does the privilege protect all the advice or none of it?
On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear opposing answers to that question in a case known as In re Grand Jury… Read the rest
A party may claim legal advice privilege or litigation privilege.
Legal advice privilege requires that the information is legal advice, given by a legal advisor in confidence to a client and in respect of which privilege is claimed.
Litigation privilege protects communication between co-litigants or their legal advisors and third parties where the communication is made for the purposes of pending or contemplated litigation. The relevant document must have been obtained or brought into existence for the purposes of a … Read the rest
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This week we highlight cert petitions that ask the Supreme Court to consider, among other things, whether the justices’ decision to prevent non-unanimous convictions in Louisiana also prohibits Puerto Rico from authorizing non-unanimous acquittals, and whether a law firm can protect under attorney-client privilege communications for which legal advice was a significant, but not primary, purpose.
In Ramos v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court ruled … Read the rest
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The FBI called it “Operation Flex”: a counterterrorism investigation in southern California. When three of the Americans targeted by the FBI learned of the investigation, they filed a lawsuit in federal court, alleging that the FBI and its agents had discriminated against them based on their religion and had conducted illegal searches. That lawsuit is now before the Supreme Court, which will hear argument Monday on whether it should be dismissed under the “state secrets” privilege or whether a … Read the rest