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Cal.: Stein-like coercion not a waiver of A-C privilege

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Providing records to DoJ under coercion to avoid corporate prosecution is not a waiver of attorney-client privilege (following Stein). Regents of the University of California v. Superior Court, 165 Cal.App.4th 672, 81 Cal.Rptr.3d 186 (2008): Turning to the circumstances presented here, we agree with the trial court that the disclosures the defendants made to the government agencies did not waive their attorney-client and attorney work product privileges. The means of coercion the government used here were, as a practical matter, more powerful than a court order. A court order can be challenged, without penalty, by way of extraordinary writ or appeal. In contrast here, the defendants here had no means of asserting the privileges without incurring the severe consequences threatened by the government agencies...continue to full post

Full post as published by Law Of Criminal Defense on December 11, 2008 (boomark / email).