Court Opinion

ID: 9490924
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:58:37.448858+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:23.857971
License: Public Domain

KEARSE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. It does not appear to me that the'district court applied an erroneous standard in this ease. Accordingly, I would affirm.
The attorney work product privilege accords limited protection for materials that were “prepared in anticipation of litigation or for trial.” See Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(3). Where the only prospect of litigation is what would be anticipated if the party undertakes a contemplated transaction but not otherwise, and the materials in question were prepared in connection with providing legal advice to the party as to whether or not to undertake that transaction, I do not regard the materials as having been prepared “in anticipation of litigation.” I regard the majority as having extended the woi;k product privilege to a stage that precedes any possible “anticipation” of litigation.
This does not mean, as suggested by the majority opinion ante at 1199-1201, 1202-03, that such materials will normally be discoverable. Documents in which a party’s attorney assesses the legal advisability of contemplated business transactions, including the possibility and efficacy of litigation if the client elects to proceed with the transaction, will normally be protected from discovery by the attorney-client privilege, so long as the client meets the usual requirements of, inter alia, maintaining confidentiality and showing that it was seeking legal advice. The assertion of attorney-client privilege in the present case was rejected only because the client had failed to make any record that distinguished the present consultation of its accounting firm from its normal business consultations. See United States v. Adlman, 68 F.3d 1495, 1499-1500 (2d Cir.1995).
I disagree with the majority’s expansion of the work-produet privilege to afford protection to documents not prepared in anticipation of litigation but instead prepared in order to permit the client to determine whether to undertake a business transaction, where there will be no anticipation of litigation unless the transaction is undertaken.