Bar Exam Toolbox Podcast Episode 182: Listen and Learn -- Policy Exclusions (Evidence)
Podcast - Finding the Balance
Podcast - A Tortured Journey with the Lying Witness
Law School Toolbox Podcast Episode 281: Listen and Learn -- Character Evidence
Bar Exam Toolbox Podcast Episode 121: Listen and Learn -- Character Evidence
Law School Toolbox Podcast Episode 259: Listen and Learn -- Relevance in Evidence
As a litigator, I routinely prepare clients for depositions. A deposition is a pre-trial procedure where a party or witness in a legal case provides sworn testimony outside of a courtroom. A lawyer asks questions of the...more
Under Fed. R. Evid 502(d), a federal court can assure that an inadvertent disclosure of privileged documents in the case before it will not allow litigants in subsequent cases to argue that such disclosure triggered a...more
On April 29, 2025, United States District Judge John H. Chun of the Western District of Washington issued an order denying defendant Amazon’s request to claw back privileged documents it argued had inadvertently produced in...more
Having taught Federal Rule of Evidence 502 (FRE 502) in my law classes for over a decade, I felt I had a firm grasp of its nuances. Yet recent litigation where I serve as Special Master prompted me to revisit the rule with...more
[Editor’s Note: This article has been republished with permission. It was originally published December 20, 2023 on the eDiscovery Assistant Blog] In Episode 127, on the ACEDS and eDiscovery Assistant #CaseoftheWeek, Kelly...more
The difficulty of handling privilege disputes can be especially pronounced in cases involving a prolonged discovery period and large corporate defendants with different document custodians. When a party chooses to withhold...more
In this excerpt from our free eGuide on protecting attorney-client privilege, we explore the changes in rules regarding privilege and their real-life implications... The right of an attorney to communicate with a client...more
Accordingly, we hold that the voluntary disclosure of a privileged attorney-client communication constitutes a waiver of the privilege as to all other communications concerning the same subject matter when the trial court...more
In the fourth episode of his "Ethical Witness Preparation" podcast series, "Finding the Balance," litigation attorney Dan Small draws a parallel between witness preparation and translating different languages. Mr. Small also...more
In the third episode of his "Ethical Witness Preparation" podcast series, "A Tortured Journey with the Lying Witness," litigation attorney Dan Small takes an in-depth look at a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Rule and...more
Cognizant Technology’s Privilege Waiver - On February 1, 2022, the District of New Jersey ordered a company to produce internal investigation materials to two former executives indicted in connection with an alleged foreign...more
During the early phases of a case, there are times where disclosure of privileged information may occur. Although lawyers should do everything to protect confidential client information, communications, and work-product...more
Federal litigators aren’t taking sufficient advantage of 2008 amendments to Federal Rule of Evidence 502, which gives them the authority to obtain protective orders that can stem the damage from inadvertent disclosure of...more
A recent decision from the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals highlights that the Board will demand sufficiently detailed privilege logs from both agency and contractor litigants. Contractors and agencies must prepare...more
As California begins preparing to ease shelter-in-place restrictions, the state’s technology industry is facing the most challenging economic circumstances in recent memory. The state’s technology companies may place new...more
Efficiency and integrity of process – The American legal system. The American legal system, founded on notions of fairness and due process, is respected throughout the world for its ability to deliver predictable,...more
Attorneys who appear in both state and federal courts must be familiar with the differences between the two systems. While some rules have harmonized over time,[1] other procedures are entirely distinct. As a matter of...more
Privileged documents are sometimes inadvertently disclosed to opposing parties during discovery and the litigation process, breaching attorney-client privileges and causing havoc for both defense and plaintiff counsels. To...more
Under Federal Rule of Evidence 612, courts concluding that "justice requires" it may order disclosure of privileged or work product protected documents that refreshed a witness's recollection before testifying. How does that...more
On July 20, 2017, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in In re OptumInsight denied OptumInsight’s petition for writ of mandamus on privilege waiver. The court held that the District Court for the...more
While courts and the Federal Rules of Evidence take an increasingly pragmatic approach to the question of when inadvertent disclosure of privileged information results in waiver, a recent federal magistrate’s ruling serves as...more
[W]e find that the unique roles of patent agents, the congressional recognition of their authority to act, the Supreme Court’s characterization of their activities as the practice of law, and the current realities of patent...more
On March 7, 2016, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recognized “a patent-agent privilege extending to communications with non-attorney patent agents when those agents are acting within the agent’s authorized...more
Although most jurisdictions agree on the basic elements of the attorney-client privilege, some differences among the jurisdictions' standards could be important. For instance, some states take a narrower view than others...more
Thanks to common law developments and Federal Rule of Evidence 502, the frightening specter of subject matter waivers now usually only arises when litigants affirmatively rely on privileged communications to gain some...more