- Attorney-client privilege can be waived under certain conditions.white colonnade image by Furan from Fotolia.com
Rule 502 of the Federal Rules of Evidence deals with how a case can be affected by a voluntary waiver of the protection of certain private and sensitive communications between an attorney and a client and/or the voluntary waiver of the protection of certain paperwork compiled in preparation for a federal administrative or judicial proceeding. The rule is a function of federal common law and does not affect any Fifth Amendment protections. - For a disclosure to be voluntary, it must be knowingly furnished. Any careless revelation that is made unintentionally, when the person accidentally making the disclosure took every reasonable precaution against the revelation, is still covered as privileged, as long as the person immediately attempts to correct the mistake once it comes to his attention.
- If protected communications or paperwork are made public to a federal regulatory agency in the course of business, such protected communications or paperwork can only be deemed to be waived under that circumstance. The waiver can't be used to benefit any non-federal government entity.
- Whenever a federal court issues a confidentiality order that states that the protections covering communications and/or the work product of an attorney on behalf of the client have not been voluntarily surrendered, that order is binding on everyone, parties and non-parties alike.
If parties in a federal case make any type of arrangement amongst themselves concerning the attorney-client privilege and/or work product, that agreement is only binding of the parties that entered into the agreement.
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