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CONFIDENTIALITY - Employer’s right to view lawyer’s email |
A recent US case noted that an email sent by an employee to her lawyer from her work computer was not a ‘confidential communication between a client and a lawyer’. |
The employee had acknowledged her workplace rule that communications are not private and may be monitored. The court likened this to claiming privilege when consulting her attorney in a workplace conference room in a loud voice with the door open. |
The court found that there was no waiver of privilege since there was no privilege in the first place. |
The privilege legislation requires that the communication be transmitted by a means which “disclosed the information to no third persons other than those who are present to further the interest of the client in the consultation”. |
Client privilege is not affected by the general fact that third parties assist in the delivery of email. |
