Attorney-Client Privilege, Work Product
& Lawyer-Client Confidentiality (S)
JD 812 (A1)
W 4:20-6:20
3 credits, Spring
Professor Rosenfeld
This seminar will offer an in-depth analysis of the attorney-client privilege, the work product doctrine, and lawyer-client confidentiality with special emphasis on recent developments in these areas of the law. Among sub-topics to be covered will be (a) changes in the American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Rules 1.6 and 1.13, and the reasons why these changes occurred; (b) the erosion of the attorney-client privilege and the work product doctrine through governmental action requiring waivers of the privilege in corporate crime cases; (c) case law interpretations of what constitutes a waiver and what falls within the crime fraud exception; (d) an analysis of common interest agreements, and their effectiveness in protecting attorney-client privilege and work product; (e) the impact of corporate scandals on confidentiality within corporations, including whether the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and new SEC Regulation for lawyer conduct will destroy the concept of candid communications between corporate officers and in-house counsel contemplated by the Upjohn case; and (f) whether any confidential or privileged communications continue to exist between governmental lawyers and their governmental clients. Students will be asked to complete a paper as part of the course.
Note: This seminar does not satisfy the Professional Responsibility requirement.
LIMITED WRITING REQUIREMENT OPTION: A limited number of students may be permitted to satisfy the upper-class writing requirement with the approval of the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.
A student who fails to attend the initial meeting of a seminar (designated by an (S) in the title), or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar, may be administratively dropped from the seminar. Students who are on a wait list for a seminar are required to attend the first seminar meeting to be considered for enrollment.
