Source: http://attorneyclientprivilege.mcguirewoods.com/chapter.aspx?ch=56
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 12:49:34+00:00

Document:
"Remember the Nitty-Gritty of Privilege Analyses: Part I"
Although attorney-client privilege claims often involve thorny legal issues, at some point a human being (usually a judge) may have to read the withheld documents and make privilege calls. In fact, judges must read withheld documents if they cannot make some global rulings based on privilege logs. Unfortunately, withheld documents now consist primarily of emails (1) whose increasing volume understandably tempts judges to primarily look for explicit privileged content on the face of the emails, and (2) whose cryptic nature make that task very difficult.
In United States v. Owensboro Dermatology Associates, P.S.C., the judge "completed a thorough in camera review" of withheld emails, and found that "each document predominantly involves legal advice." Civ. A. No. 4:16-mc-00003- to -00005-JHM, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105099, at *16-17 (W.D. Ky. July 7, 2017). Several days later, the judge in Nalco Co. v. Baker Hughes Inc., Civ. A. No. 4:09-CV-1885, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 111127, at *8 (S.D. Tex. July 18, 2017), similarly upheld a privilege claim for an email between two employees, in which one referred to "a specific request he made for legal advice to an attorney."
Lawyers should remind their clients to (1) be careful what they write, because even a successful privilege assertion often will involve the judge reading the withheld document, (2) discipline themselves to state on the face of their emails when they are seeking legal advice (not just add a "privilege" header). Next week's Privilege Point will address a case in which in camera review dealt with a more subtle issue.
"May Litigants Rely on Their Lawyers' Statements to Support Privilege Claims?"
Every court agrees that litigants must support their privilege claims with something other than naked assertions. But they disagree about the type of support required to justify withholding documents or testimony.
In Jeddo Coal Co. v. Rio Tinto Procurement (Sing.) PTD Ltd., the court dropped to a footnote its off-handed assurance that "Rio Tinto may also provide a cover letter or other document that explains the basis for the privilege and identifies the persons who are party to the communications." Civ. No. 3: 16-CV-621, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57803, at *20 n.2 (M.D. Pa. Apr. 5, 2018). Most courts require far more. A couple weeks later, in Motorola Solutions, Inc. v. Hytera Communications Corp., the court blasted defendant's privilege claim for one withheld email, sarcastically noting that Motorola's "lawyers assure us, with absolutely no evidentiary support – that the email was the necessary first step in … obtaining legal advice." No. 17 C 1973, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 64095, at *5 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 17, 2018). The court quoted an earlier Seventh Circuit case for the proposition that "[l]awyers' talk is no substitute for data" – and then pointedly remarked that "[l]ittle wonder that the courts are unanimous in requiring proof of assertions made in briefs." Id. (citation omitted).
Courts' differing attitudes toward the required level of evidentiary support highlight the need for corporations and their lawyers to carefully check the pertinent court's and even the presiding judge's earlier rulings and inclinations.
(denying privilege and work product protection for an investigation of a plaintiff's injury at a store; "Defendant fails to show it created the incident report outside the normal course of business. As noted above, Defendant provided extensive documentation detailing its Incident Reporting System, which indicates the incident report is a business record created in the normal course of business. Defendant offers no evidence to support its assertion that the report was created in anticipation of litigation."; also denying privilege protection).
("The burden is on the proponent of the privilege "to establish that the attorney-client relationship existed, that the communications under consideration are privileged, and that the privilege was not waived.' Edwards, 370 S.E.2d at 301. . . ."; "[T]he party withholding the document must specifically and factually support its claim of privilege 'by way of evidence, not just argument.' Neuberger Berman Real Estate Income Fund, Inc. v. Lola Brown Trust, 230 F.R.D. 398, 410 (D. Md. 2005)."; "Applying these principles, and having reviewed each of the documents withheld from production, the court concludes that ATK has failed to demonstrate that the documents are protected by the attorney client privilege. The documents were prepared by employees of WGI and ATK, and include no communications from ATK's legal counsel. While ATK has submitted emails indicating that each of the documents was intended to be shared with legal counsel, neither the documents themselves, nor any other evidence presented by ATK, establishes that the documents were 'prepared primarily in a legal capacity,' as opposed to a 'business capacity.' Henson, 118 F.R.D. at 588.").
The attorney-client privilege can protect lawyers' input into draft documents created by the lawyer or by the client – which of course evaporates when the client approves the finished document for disclosure outside the relationship. Not surprisingly, courts examine such lawyers' revisions to assess whether those lawyers were providing legal input rather than business, grammatical, stylistic suggestions, etc.
In Shenwick v. Twitter, Inc., the court noted that defendants withheld "several drafts of documents with comments provided with the redlined version." Case No. 16-cv-05314-JST (SK), 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 185714, at *7 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 30, 2018). But because the court could not "determine the identity of the author of comments [in] these draft documents," it ordered defendants "to provide the Court with the identity of the individuals who provided the comments and link them to the comments in the draft documents submitted to the Court.'" Id.
The lesson from such decisions is self-evident. Lawyers should always memorialize their role in any drafting process, and stand ready to identify their suggested changes – including the nature of their legally-driven revisions.
In 2015, the court handling a malicious prosecution case against the Town of Islip held that the Town had waived privilege protection for documents that "were apparently accessible by all Town employees, " even those without a need to know, and that might also have been accessed by members of the public "in days past." Norton v. Town of Islip, No. CV 04-3079 (PKC) (SIL), 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 125114, at *11, *14 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 18, 2015).
The parties' privilege fights have continued, and plaintiff recently challenged the Town's declaration that "'[t]here is no reason to believe' that the privileged documents were accessed by anyone other than those individuals and offices to whom they were addressed." Norton v. Town of Islip, CV 04-3079 (PKC) (SIL), 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 177811, at *24 (E.D.N.Y. Oct. 16, 2018). The court again addressed the access issue. After explaining that it was "unable to credit the Town Defendants' conclusion about access of the subject documents," the court ordered the Town to provide "affidavits from an individual or individuals with knowledge setting forth where each document was kept, including all individuals who had access to the documents and when that access was provided." Id. at *25, *28. And the court then doubled down, emphasizing that "[f]or the sake of clarity, the Court is directing the Town Defendants to explain who had access, not just who actually accessed the documents at issue and what was done to maintain confidentiality." Id. at *28.
It is difficult to imagine any institutional client (governmental or corporate) being able to comply with such a remarkable requirement.
"Remember the Nitty-Gritty of Privilege Analyses: Part II"
Last week's Privilege Point described two cases in which courts read withheld emails in making privilege calls. Most judges understandably consider "privilege" headers irrelevant, and instead look for privileged content on the face of the emails.
In camera reviews can also help judges analyze other privilege issues. In Martinez v. Kleinfeld Bridal Corp., the court assessed "plaintiff's contention that notes [reflecting employee meetings] are not privileged because defense counsel [from Littler Mendelson] functioned as an investigator and provided business (rather than legal) advice." No. 16-CV-348 (RA) (JLC), 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103261, at *4 (S.D.N.Y. June 30, 2017). After reviewing the notes in camera, the court rejected plaintiff's argument -- noting that the notes "refer to the party carrying out the investigation with the pronoun 'we,' and refer to defense counsel as 'the labor attorneys' or 'the attorneys.'" Id. at *5 (internal citation omitted).
Corporate lawyers should train their clients (and constantly remind themselves) that any emails or other documents for which they could legitimately claim privilege protection should on their face contain language that will assure success in a later privilege fight. This usually consists of explicit requests for legal advice and explicit legal advice back --but can involve more subtle attention to wording. This is one area of the law in which lawyers and their clients essentially create their own exhibits.
"Illogical and Frightening 'Need to Know' Doctrine'"
Corporations face two possible impediments when claiming privilege protection for purely internal communications. First, some courts see widespread intra-corporate circulation as tending to show that the communications primarily dealt with business rather than legal matters. This approach makes some sense, although a few courts take it to an unjustifiable extreme – applying a per se rule that the privilege cannot protect communications an employee sends both to a lawyer and to a non-lawyer requesting their input.
Second, the more frightening doctrine involves the "need to know" standard. In Peerless Indemnity Insurance Co. v. Sushi Avenue, Inc., the court rejected plaintiff’s privilege claim for several internal documents – because it had not established with evidence that the documents "were not disseminated beyond those persons who needed to know their contents." Civ. No. 15-4112 ADM/LIB, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22436, at *10 (D. Minn. Feb. 15, 2017).
Many courts follow this troubling waiver approach – which can force corporations to turn over to litigation adversaries purely internal communications simply because they were shared with a few employees who did not need them. Because this doctrine focuses mostly on lawyers' communication to their corporate clients' employees, we have the primary responsibility to limit internal circulation and re-circulation of our advice.
Although federal courts generally articulate the same basic attorney-client privilege principles, they can demonstrate enormous variation when applying those principles. In some situations, it might be nearly impossible for companies to successfully assert privilege protection.
In United States ex rel. Schaengold v. Memorial Health, Inc., No. 4:11-cv-58, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 156595 (S.D. Ga. Nov. 5, 2014), defendants sought to retrieve one document (out of 30,000 documents produced) that they claimed to have inadvertently produced to the government. They described the document as a draft sent to the company's lawyer, portions of which the client deleted at the lawyer's request before disclosing the final version to third parties. The court found that the document did not deserve privilege protection, because the lawyer's supporting affidavit "fails to show who exactly sent the Draft Document, whether the primary purpose of the communication was for legal advice, or whether the communication was indeed confidential." Id. at *9. Turning to the inadvertent production issue, the court found defendants' "naked assertion of a privilege review" inadequate — because defendants did not describe "'when [the] review occurred, how much time [Prior Counsel] took to review the documents, what ['certain'] documents were reviewed, and other basic details of the review process.'" Id. at *17 (citation omitted; alterations in original).
The next Privilege Point will describe another federal court's similar decision issued seven days later.

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