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Re: Gov't. Attorney papers and confidentiality?



Bill,

        My information on attorney-client is coming from my law school
Legal Profession class, so I am by no means an authority on the
intricacies of applying attorney-client privilege or able to give
any legal advice other than of a general informational nature.

        That said, I'm assuming you mean the recent Clinton-related
Supreme Court rulings.  My personal understanding/thoughts are: I haven't
read the actual cases, so again I'm going by information shared in class
room discussion-but I don't think the Supreme Court's ruling opened all
government attorney-client information/records to the public. I think the
Court's ruling was more specific and dealt with whether information
Clinton shared with government attorney's could be protected from scrutiny
by invoking attorney-client privilege.  My sense was that the Court ruled
that Clinton's use of attorney-client privilege to block the independant
Counsel's perjury probe was unsupportable.  I think the Court drew a
distinction between the personal use of such attorney's by Clinton to
defend against the perjury charges and their role as government counsel.
I think the ruling would hold true for any other member of government
being investigated by another branch of government, but I don't think it
moves towards a general releasing of government attorney-client privileged
documents.  There are tons of Federal Laws which apply to the releasing of
such materials-the General Confidentiality statement is in 18 US Code
S.1905- and many of the different branches have separate rules.  It is
confusing to say the least and serious stuff.  Disclosure on the part of
the attorney is considered a crime and can lead to imprisonment.

Jennifer Allain Rallo
Assistant Archivist
The Johns Hopkins University Archives
(410) 516-4259
rallo@jhu.edu

On Fri, 28 Apr 2000, Bill Brown wrote:

> >        The general thought on attorney-client privilege is that it
> legally lasts
> >into perpetuity, even after the clients death.  This is done to ensure
> >that clients will have no fear of speaking to their attorney with candor-a
> >vital requirement for effective representation.
>
> Jennifer,
>
>         Does the perpetuity of attorney-client privilege extend to activites of
> Government General and Legal Counsels?  Am I correct that some of the
> recent rulings of the US Supreme Court now open those records, since those
> counsels mentioned would be on the government payroll?
>
> Thanks,
> Bill
>
>
>
>
>
>
> "When it comes to War, I do not like to take sides!"
> Sgt. Schutz [Hogan's Heroes]
>
> *******************************
> William H. (Bill) Brown, C.A.
> Governors' Records Archivist
> North Carolina State Archives
> 4614 Mail Service Center
> Raleigh, NC 27601-4614
> 919-733-3952 (T), 919-733-1354 (F)
> wbrown@ncsl.dcr.state.nc.us
> *******************************
>
> "Opinions expressed in this message may not represent the policy of my
> agency."
>
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Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>