Evidence: Privileges: Attorney-Client Privilege

• Attorney-Client Privilege – protects confidential communication between an attorney and a client (or their representatives) made during professional legal consultation. Such communication will be privileged unless waived by the client or an exception applies.
  

• Attorney includes members of a bar and someone the client reasonably believes is a member of the bar, and a representative of the attorney.
• Client includes a person seeking to become a client or a representative of the client.
• Communication: The privilege applies only to communication and NOT TO underlying information, pre-existing documents, physical evidence.
• Confidential means that the client intends confidentiality.
• Joint client rule – Where an attorney acts for both parties to a transaction, no privilege can be invoked in a lawsuit between the two parties, but the privilege can be claimed in a suit between either or both of the two parties and third parties.
• Legal advice must be the primary purpose of the communication.
  

• Losing the privilege
• Waiver – the client is the holder of the privilege, so the client alone has power to waive by disclosure of the communication to a third party. The privilege continues after the attorney-client relationship ends. After the death of the client, the client’s estate holds the privilege and may waive it.
• Exceptions to the privilege. The privilege is lost when:
• The client tells the attorney of future crimes or fraud.
• The client puts legal advice in issue.
• There is a dispute between the attorney and the client
  

• There is no federal doctor-patient privilege. There is a federal psychotherapist-patient privilege.