How an Outsider’s Presence Affects the Attorney-Client Privilege
On more than one occasion, an in-house counsel has been summoned to a strategy meeting about a potential or ongoing dispute, and when he arrives, he finds an outside accountant already seated in the conference room ready to participate in the meeting. At this point, the in-house counsel’s gut reaction usually is to ban the accountant from the meeting so that the attorney-client privilege will not be destroyed. While excluding the accountant from the meeting may ultimately make sense, making that judgment without some serious reflection could deprive the client of insights that may come with little or no risk and/or may be worth the risk of waiving the privilege.… Keep reading