Benefits & ERISA Law

The Attorney-Client Privilege in Insurance Litigation

My in-box, like most of you I assume, is inundated on a day in, day out basis with offers of webinars, seminars, and the like on every topic under the sun that the sponsors think I might even conceivably have any interest in or professional connection to. Most I ignore without even opening, as not even close to being on point with my professional interests and concerns. Even of that remaining subset of ones that have something to do with my work, or my blogging interests, or my professional development, I seldom pass them along in a post because they often appear to simply be lawyers over-complicating and over-analyzing what should be, and normally is, a relatively simple point or area of law (what, lawyers making something more complicated than is necessary? Who'd have thunk it?). My favorite in this regard are the seminars that are routinely touted to me about the complexities of the tripartite relationship in the insurance context, an area of law in which there is, frankly, little complexity and most of the rules of which I summed up right here in this post some time ago.

A different species of educational opportunity, however, consists of those that actually provide a detailed level of analysis on a question that is in fact complicated, and that presents nuances that need to be dealt with in the day to day hurly-burly of practice. This webinar here, on the attorney-client privilege in the context of insurance coverage counseling and litigation, looks on its face to fall into that category. The privilege, in this context, is a lot of fun for a litigator, like me, who enjoys working with the rules of evidence, and exploiting - or conversely defending against - gaps in the protection provided by the privilege. Two issues that quickly jump to the forefront of my mind even as I write this post - both of which appear to be covered by the webinar - are the interrelationship of the privilege with bad faith litigation, including in particular the impact on whether and how to use an advice of counsel defense, and the possible risk of disclosure by means of discovery from an expert witness. There are many more, but they seem to fall within the broad categories listed in the webinar's agenda, so rather than my reciting them, you may just want to take a listen.

Full post as published by Boston ERISA Law Blog on June 15, 2010 (boomark / email).