Category Archives: Work Product Doctrine

Major Opinion: Texas Upholds Privilege for Lawyer’s Emails with Employee–Expert 1

Attorney-Client Privilege, In-House Counsel, Waiver, Work Product Doctrine • Tags: , , ,

Many times your best testifying subject-matter expert is right under your nose—your corporate client’s own employee. If properly handled, the attorney–client privilege protects from discovery in-house and outside counsel’s communications with the client’s employees. But if you turn an employee into a testifying expert, does the privilege evaporate?

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(4)(C), at least since 2010 and subject to minor exceptions, expressly protects lawyer–expert communications, whether an employee or third-party. But many state civil-procedure rules do not follow the federal model, and the issue remains subject to a mixture of evidence rules, civil-procedure rules, and common-law interpretations.

Texas has now spoken. The Texas Supreme Court held that the attorney–client privilege covers a lawyer’s communications with an employee–expert, including the lawyer’s revisions to the expert’s affidavit. In re City of Dickinson, 2019 WL 638555 (Tex. Feb. 15, 2019). You may read the opinion here.

Let’s discuss the Court’s reasoning, and how it may affect other states where the issue remains unanswered.

Hurricane Ike

Privilege issues always arise after some event triggers litigation, and here it was Hurricane Ike, More…

Witness Statements and Work-Product: Is It Deceptively Simple? 2

Work Product Doctrine • Tags: , , ,

It’s one of the first steps. Upon learning of an event—an accident, a breach—that makes one contemplate litigation, a party’s lawyer or the lawyer’s investigator interviews nonparties with relevant knowledge. These interviews produce facts, of course, but also could contain, directly or indirectly, the lawyer’s mental impressions or legal strategies about important things such as the strength of a potential claim, liability exposure, or damages.

The interview results come in different forms. Some lawyers audio- or video-tape a question-and-answer session with the potential witness; others translate the witness’s comments into a sworn declaration; while still others memorialize the interview in a lawyer-prepared memorandum. And when litigation erupts and the adversary moves to compel the recorded interview, the declaration, or the memorandum, the party’s lawyer chuckles while asserting the work-product doctrine.

The chuckling stops, however, when the lawyer sees how courts have ruled in a seemingly complex maze of fact work-product and opinion work-product. Isn’t a recorded interview simply a recitation of facts devoid of an attorney’s mental impressions? Same goes for a signed witness statement, right? “Facts aren’t privileged” is a familiar if inapposite refrain. “Just redact the lawyer’s comments and produce the facts” is another.

Maybe one court has answered these questions and solved the nationwide inconsistency. Let’s discuss. More…

Court Rejects Privilege for “Reserve Amount” Set by In-House Claims Counsel

Attorney-Client Privilege, In-House Counsel, Work Product Doctrine • Tags: , , , , ,

If an insurance company may have to pay a claim, it typically sets aside a sum of money—the reserve—to fund that claim if and when payment becomes necessary. And if the company’s in-house claims counsel decides the reserve amount, the question arises whether the attorney–client privilege or work-product doctrine protects that decision from discovery.

The Arizona federal court, applying federal law, rejected a surety company’s privilege and work-product arguments, and ordered it to disclose its reserve amount to its adversary. The court made this ruling even though the company’s Senior Claims Counsel “solely” set the amount “in his capacity as legal counsel.” Western Surety Co. v. United States, 2018 WL 6788665 (D. Ariz. Dec. 26, 2018). You may read the decision here. More…