attorney-client communication

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Last month, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales granted permission for Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. Ltd. (“ENRC”) to appeal the May 2017 decision by the High Court[1] relating to a dispute over the legal professional privilege with the Serious Fraud Office (“SFO”).[2] The Court of Appeal will likely hear the case next year.

In May, the American Bar Association (“ABA”) released a Formal Opinion 477, providing guidance on attorney use of emails in communication with clients. In doing so, the ABA has promulgated a new standard when considering the level of protections necessary while using technology to converse about a legal representation. According to the ABA, a lawyer generally may transmit information relating to the representation of a client over the Internet when the lawyer has undertaken “reasonable efforts” to prevent inadvertent or unauthorized access to information relating to the representation. Under this reasonable-efforts standard, however, the ABA explicitly warns that a lawyer may be required to take special security precautions, like the use of encrypted emails, when the information warrants a higher degree of security.

In Disney’s The Lion King, the wise lion Mufasa sits atop a rock crag with his heir, the cub Simba, looking down on the Serengeti below. “Everything the light touches,” Mufasa instructs, “is our kingdom.” A similar scene plays out in countless law firms each year, when newly admitted attorneys are trained on the boundaries of the attorney-client privilege, a realm of communication protected from disclosure to outsiders. The California Supreme Court recently cast a shadow over this privilege, however, calling into question the extent to which it applies to one of the most common forms of attorney-client communication: an attorney’s bill.