Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 460

524US2

Unit: $U92

[09-15-00 14:34:37] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 524 U. S. 399 (1998)

415

O(cid:146)Connor, J., dissenting

edges that most cases merely “presume the privilege sur-
vives,” see ante, at 404, and it relies on the case law’s “im-
plicit acceptance” of a continuous privilege, see ante, at 406.
Opinions squarely addressing the posthumous force of the
privilege “are relatively rare.” See 124 F. 3d, at 232. And
even in those decisions expressly holding that the privilege
continues after the death of the client, courts do not typically
engage in detailed reasoning, but rather conclude that the
cases construing the testamentary exception imply survival
of the privilege. See, e. g., Glover, supra, at 406–408; see
also Wright & Graham, supra, § 5498, at 484 (“Those who
favor an eternal duration for the privilege seldom do much
by way of justifying this in terms of policy”).

Moreover, as the Court concedes, see ante, at 403–404,
406–407, there is some authority for the proposition that
a deceased client’s communications may be revealed, even
in circumstances outside of the testamentary context. Cali-
fornia’s Evidence Code,
for example, provides that the
attorney-client privilege continues only until the deceased
client’s estate is ﬁnally distributed, noting that “there is little
reason to preserve secrecy at the expense of excluding rele-
vant evidence after the estate is wound up and the repre-
sentative is discharged.” Cal. Evid. Code Ann. § 954, and
comment, p. 232, § 952 (West 1995). And a state appellate
court has admitted an attorney’s testimony concerning a de-
ceased client’s communications after “balanc[ing] the neces-
sity for revealing the substance of the [attorney-client con-
versation] against the unlikelihood of any cognizable injury
to the rights, interests, estate or memory of [the client].”
See Cohen, supra, at 464, 357 A. 2d, at 693. The American
Law Institute, moreover, has recently recommended with-
holding the privilege when the communication “bears on
a litigated issue of pivotal signiﬁcance” and has suggested
that courts “balance the interest in conﬁdentiality against
any exceptional need for the communication.” Restatement
(Third) of the Law Governing Lawyers § 127, at 431, Com-