Opposing party's privileged or confidential documents.
Defense Counsel Journal › Vol. 64 Nbr. 4, October 1997
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Summary
Courts, state bar associations, and the American Bar Assn (ABA) do not agree on the ethical and legal requirements for lawyers who inadvertently receive confidential or privileged documents belonging to opposing parties. The ABA has received some judicial support for its rules requiring receiving lawyers to avoid reviewing such documents and notify opposing counsel immediately. However, some courts have held that any public disclosure constitutes a waiver of privilege. Notification, documentation, and possible motions are suggested for lawyers on either side of inadvertant disclosures.
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Opposing party's privileged or confidential documents.
To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know; that is true knowledge.
--Confucius OVER the past few months, you have been fighting in a heated battle of high-stakes litigation with opposing counsel over discovery issues. Time after time, you have sent letters demanding discovery of certain documents, while opposing counsel insist that they have complied with the requests. One morning, however, you walk into your office and find a mysterious package addressed to you, with no return address, on your desk. Opening the package, you discover that it contains confidential documents belonging to the opposing party. Some of the documents are privileged, and some are responsive to your seemingly disregarded discovery requests. With these documents, you will surely win your case. In disbelief, you have no idea how these documents were sent to you. Someone must have done so either by mistake or by surreptitious conduct. Perhaps, the mysterious sender was someone who wanted to correct the ...See the full content of this document
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