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Re: Collections Restrictions



Laura:
This is a tough subject.  I am not a lawyer, but have been studying this
topic in depth over the last two years.  Some relevant points:

Attorney-Client Confidentiality: Has no bearing on you as an archivist.
It only is between the lawyer and the client, and deals with when, why,
and how the lawyer would be disciplined by the ABA.

Privacy and Ethics are your concerns.  The best, but hardest thing to do
is only open the files concerning persons you have contacted, and give
you authorization to do so (waived their rights to confidentiality).
You could also open each file when you verify that the everyone
concerned in each file is deceased.  Also very hard.  The most prudent
thing to do is to close each file for a specific amount of years
depending on when the legal matter was closed, e.g. 5 years, 10 years,
25 years, 50 years.

All this should be done in consultation with your own institution's
attorney, or after long talks between you and your administration.

Some relevant articles on the subject are:

Akiba Covitz, "Providing Access to Lawyer's Papers: The Perils, and the
Rewards," Legal Reference Services Quarterly, vol. 20 (2001): 151-179.

Kermit L. Hall, "Historians and Acces to the Files of Lawyers," OAH
Newsletter, May 1994: 7-8.

Bonnie Hobbs, "Lawyers' Papers: Confidentiality Versus the Claims of
History," Washington and Lee Law Review, vol. 49, no. 1 (1992): 179-211.



Whatever you do, please do not just destroy the files saying the issues
are too hard to deal with.  There is a reasonable solution to be found.

Mark

Mark Lambert
Special Collections and Government Documents Librarian
South Texas College of Law
Houston, TX

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