Ethics

On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court will hear argument in Costco Wholesale v. Superior Court, perhaps the most important case on attorney client privilege in California in decades.  Costco's lawyers had written a lengthy and dense opinion letter to Costco, and the trial court went through it line by line to decide what is privileged and what is not -- ultimately ordering that a partially redacted version of the letter be produced to plaintiffs.  Principally, any factual statements in the letter and any quotations of non-privileged statements by others were ordered to be produced.  The Court of Appeal approved of that procedure.  The business community has appeared in force before the California Supreme Court, seeking more robust protection of such letters.    . . . .    The State Bar of California is deciding whether to permit victim impact statements in its disciplinary proceedings.    . . . .    The United States District Court in Delaware permitted a non-consensual, or "unilateral" ethical screen to cure a conflict that fell across international boundaries.    . . . .