The United States Supreme Court justices recently decided to take up In re Grand Jury to "clarify the standards that federal courts should use to determine what types of information exchanged between a lawyer and a client is privileged and thus protected from disclosure during litigation," and LaKeisha Caton was quoted in Khorri Atkinson's recent article discussing the potential implications.
According to Caton, even if the justices' ultimate ruling disadvantages employers, "it is always helpful to have consistent guidance from the highest court as opposed to the current limbo in different jurisdictions, which could lead to forum shopping."
Caton went on to say that companies should assume the more stringent Ninth Circuit decisions should be the standard policy. She advised employees to "...be careful of what you put in writing. You can assume something is privileged, but there's anyways a possibility that opposing counsel is going to challenge it. This is something employers should do regardless of how the Supreme Court's decision comes down."
The full article can be found here.
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