Legal Commentary

Like many folks, I subscribe to a handful of email listserves, some academic and some practical. I've chatted with some colleagues recently about a curious practice I've noticed on some listserves of subscribers posting information about clients, information that on its face would appear to be confidential. For instance, I have seen this practice now and again on the clinical listserve to which I subscribe, on which members periodically will post information to solicit feedback or advice, or to applaud the hard work of student attorneys on behalf of clinic clients.

Even if client information is disclosed to solicit advice on behalf of the client, or the client information is seemingly innocuous or anonymous, I wonder how broadly and permanently this information is distributed when disclosed on a listserve. Perhaps I'm wrong, but to my knowledge, these listserves by no means are secure, closed environments, and I believe that some listserves are captured on websites that can be found through a Google search.

As a practitioner and sometimes teacher of ethics, but not a clinical professor, I had some questions for more knowledgeable readers. Do clinics typically have confidentiality agreements with clients that include express consent to share information about the client or his or her case for academic purposes? Should clinic clients be understood impliedly to consent to certain kinds of disclosures for academic purposes? Do many clinics maintain confidentiality standards for students and faculty governing when and how they may disclose client information for academic or other purposes, particularly through email and the internet? What kind of balance best should be struck here between a healthy academic exchange within the clinic community, an exchange that surely often benefits clinic clients, and traditional confidentiality standards?