Ethics

The Maine Professional Ethics Commission of the Board of Bar Overseers has concluded (in opinion 196) that "it is ethically impermissible for an attorney to seek to uncover metadata, embedded in an electronic document received from counsel for another party, in an effort to detect confidential information that should be reasonably known not to have been intentionally communicated."

That means that Alabama, Florida, Maine, the New York State Bar, the New York County Bar, and Arizona have concluded that lawyers typically shouldn't be allowed to look at metadata.  In contrast, Maryland, the D.C. Bar, Colorado, and the ABA have concluded that it is usually permissible for a lawyer to review metadata.  Finally, Pennsylvania has staked out a middle ground approach.