Does changing outside counsel waive privilege over company files?
Usually no. Attorney-client privilege generally remains with the company when only the outside law firm changes, but file transfer and deal-room structure can create separate waiver problems.
Corporate privilege is still client-centric. Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383 (1981) grounded the doctrine in “full and frank communication between attorneys and their clients”. Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n v. Weintraub, 471 U.S. 343 (1985) then made the control point explicit: “the authority to assert and waive the corporation's attorney-client privilege passes as well” when control passes. A substitution of outside counsel, without a change in client control, is therefore not ordinarily a waiver event. The law firm is changing; the privilege holder is not.
The file-transfer cases point in the same direction, but with sharper edges. Sage Realty Corp. v. Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn LLP, 91 N.Y.2d 30 (1997) adopted the modern entire-file presumption in New York and emphasized the client's claim to work-product materials “for the creation of which they paid”. ABA Formal Opinion 471 treats surrender of electronic and paper files as part of protecting the client on termination, and ABA Formal Opinion 489 treats an orderly handoff as part of the same ethical frame when lawyers change firms. NYSBA Opinion 1212 is useful because it marks the boundary more cleanly: absent client consent, a file can move to the client or successor counsel, but not to a nonlawyer program that does not itself represent the client. In transaction settings, Tekni-Plex, Inc. v. Meyner & Landis, 89 N.Y.2d 123 (1996) adds that operational privilege and merger-negotiation privilege may not move together, which matters for any AI-indexed deal room treated as one undifferentiated archive.
- Transaction files are not unitary.
Tekni-Plexsuggests that operational communications and merger-negotiation privilege can separate. A company that assumes the deal room moves as one object may be asserting more control than the law gives it, especially when the archive mixes ordinary operational advice with negotiation-specific material.
Sources for this answer
Case law
A.1 Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383 (1981)Supports the cited proposition. (Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383 (1981))
full and frank communication between attorneys and their clients
See Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383 (1981).
Case law
A.2 Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n v. Weintraub, 471 U.S. 343 (1985)Supports the cited proposition. (Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n v. Weintraub, 471 U.S. 343 (1985))
the authority to assert and waive the corporation's attorney-client privilege passes as well
See Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n v. Weintraub, 471 U.S. 343 (1985).
Case law
A.3 Sage Realty Corp. v. Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn LLP, 91 N.Y.2d 30 (1997)Supports the cited proposition. (Sage Realty Corp. v. Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn LLP, 91 N.Y.2d 30 (1997))
for the creation of which they paid
See Sage Realty Corp. v. Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn LLP, 91 N.Y.2d 30 (1997).
Commentary
A.4 ABA Formal Opinion 471, Ethical Obligations of Lawyer to Surrender Papers and Property to which Former Client is EntitledPDFUpon termination of a representation, a lawyer must surrender to the former client all papers and property to which the client is entitled, which generally includes materials provided by the client and end-product documents, but excludes internal firm documents generated for the lawyer's own purpose unless necessary to protect the client's interest in an incomplete matter.
Upon the termination of a representation, a lawyer is required under Model Rules 1.15 and 1.16(d) to take steps to the extent reasonably practicable to protect a client’s interest, and such steps include surrendering to the former client papers and property to which the former client is entitled.
See ABA Formal Opinion 471, Ethical Obligations of Lawyer to Surrender Papers and Property to which Former Client is Entitled.
Commentary
A.5 ABA Formal Opinion 489, Obligations Related to Notice When Lawyers Change FirmsPDFLaw firms may require reasonable notice of a lawyer's departure to facilitate an orderly transition, but such requirements cannot be used to restrict client choice, interfere with diligent representation, or impose financial penalties that violate Rule 5.6(a).
Firm notification requirements, however, cannot be so rigid that they restrict or interfere with a client’s choice of counsel or the client’s choice of when to transition a matter.
See ABA Formal Opinion 489, Obligations Related to Notice When Lawyers Change Firms.
Commentary
A.6 New York State Bar Association Ethics Opinion 1212A public defender's office that has been defunded may not transfer client files to an assigned counsel program without client consent and must instead maintain those files or transfer them to successor counsel in accordance with the ethical obligations governing dissolving law firms.
Absent the client’s informed consent, a public defender may not deliver open or closed client files to the assigned counsel program.
See New York State Bar Association Ethics Opinion 1212.
Case law
A.7 Tekni-Plex, Inc. v. Meyner & Landis, 89 N.Y.2d 123 (1996)Whether the attorney-client privilege transfers to a successor corporation in a merger depends on whether the successor continues the pre-existing business operations, though this control does not extend to communications regarding the merger negotiations themselves when the parties have structured their agreement to maintain adversarial interests.
When ownership of a corporation changes hands, whether the attorney-client relationship transfers as well to the new owners turns on the practical consequences rather than the formalities of the particular transaction.
See Tekni-Plex, Inc. v. Meyner & Landis, 89 N.Y.2d 123 (1996).
Can AI search of privileged files waive attorney-client privilege?
It can, depending on access, retention, reuse, and counsel supervision. Courts and commentators are treating AI search as an ordinary confidentiality and third-party disclosure problem, not as a categorical AI exception.
That is why the live waiver rules still sit in the mechanics, not the substitution. Federal Rule of Evidence 502(b) preserves privilege after inadvertent disclosure only if the holder took “reasonable steps to prevent disclosure” and promptly tried to fix the mistake. Victor Stanley, Inc. v. Creative Pipe, Inc., 250 F.R.D. 251 (D. Md. 2008) remains the warning that weak screening and slow remediation can destroy the protection. Third-party access is still analyzed through older agency cases rather than special AI doctrine. United States v. Kovel, 296 F.2d 918 (2d Cir. 1961) protects necessary intermediaries; Cavallaro v. United States, 284 F.3d 236 (1st Cir. 2002) rejects mere convenience; and United States v. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 129 F.3d 681 (1st Cir. 1997) treated disclosure outside the confidentiality circle as enough to lose both privilege and work product. That same logic is why e-billing narratives are awkward. NYSBA Opinion 716 does not treat invoices as privileged in the abstract; it treats them as potentially privileged only when they reveal motive, strategy, or the specific legal work performed.
On AI, the firms are even closer together. Perkins Coie, Sidley Austin, Blank Rome, Proskauer, and Gibson Dunn all treat the first 2026 cases as architecture cases rather than philosophical AI cases. Consumer tools with monitoring, training, or broad disclosure rights look like ordinary third-party recipients. Bounded enterprise deployments improve the record, but they do not finish the argument. The striking gap is that almost none of the firm commentary can point to a case about embeddings or AI-indexed deal rooms specifically. The firms are reasoning by analogy from Kovel, Heppner, Warner, and ordinary waiver law.
That last point is probably the most useful synthesis from the firm layer. No serious source in the record says embeddings are automatically safe. None says they are automatically waiving either. The commentary instead keeps reducing the issue to the same variables courts already understand: Was the system consumer or enterprise? Did the vendor have reuse rights? Was the use directed by counsel? Could the data escape the matter boundary? Those are old privilege questions with new plumbing.
Changing firms is the easy part. Re-hosting the matter into company-wide search, AI note-taking, or retrieval layers is the harder part. A handoff from one law firm system to another usually preserves the same client-controlled story. A handoff from outside counsel into a broad enterprise knowledge layer raises a different question: whether the system is still acting as bounded infrastructure or has become another recipient of the substance.
Enterprise vendor terms now function as privilege facts. No-training promises, zero-retention settings, and processor-style confidentiality commitments make the nonwaiver argument better; they do not make it automatic. The more the system looks like a reusable public service, the more the record starts to resemble the
Heppnercommentaries rather thanWarner.Whether creating embeddings from privileged files is itself a disclosure remains open. One side analogizes embeddings to OCR, search indexing, or TAR inside a confidential environment. The other side sees derivative representations stored or reused by a vendor, which could look much closer to third-party exposure. We have not found a reported appellate decision in the source set that squarely decides it.
Whether enterprise no-training terms are enough to fit a
Kovel-type theory is unresolved. Firms increasingly argue that private, counsel-directed AI can look like a supervised legal-services adjunct. Courts may still insist on a narrower, more formal intermediary role than most SaaS contracts provide.
Sources for this answer
Primary law
B.1 Federal Rule of Evidence 502(b)Supports the cited proposition. (Federal Rule of Evidence 502(b))
reasonable steps to prevent disclosure
See Federal Rule of Evidence 502(b).
Case law
B.2 Victor Stanley, Inc. v. Creative Pipe, Inc., 250 F.R.D. 251 (D. Md. 2008)In the context of ESI discovery, a party waives attorney-client privilege or work-product protection through inadvertent production if it fails to take reasonable precautions to prevent disclosure, and the party asserting such privilege bears the burden of establishing an evidentiary basis for each element of the privilege when challenged.
The intermediate test requires the court to balance the following factors to determine whether inadvertent production of attorney-client privileged materials waives the privilege: (1) the reasonableness of the precautions taken to prevent inadvertent disclosure; (2) the number of inadvertent disclosures; (3) the extent of the disclosures; (4) any delay in measures taken to rectify the disclosure; and (5) overriding interests in justice.
See Victor Stanley, Inc. v. Creative Pipe, Inc., 250 F.R.D. 251 (D. Md. 2008).
Case law
B.3 United States v. Kovel, 296 F.2d 918 (2d Cir. 1961)The attorney-client privilege may extend to communications made to a non-lawyer, such as an accountant, when that person's assistance is necessary for the effective consultation between the client and the lawyer for the purpose of obtaining legal advice.
What is vital to the privilege is that the communication be made in confidence for the purpose of obtaining legal advice from the lawyer.
See United States v. Kovel, 296 F.2d 918 (2d Cir. 1961).
Case law
B.4 Cavallaro v. United States, 284 F.3d 236 (1st Cir. 2002)The attorney-client privilege does not extend to communications with an accountant unless the accountant is necessary to facilitate legal advice, and the common-interest doctrine cannot be used to create a privilege where none exists.
Kovel requires that to sustain a privilege an accountant must be "necessary, or at least highly useful, for the effective consultation between the client and the lawyer which the privilege is designed to permit."
See Cavallaro v. United States, 284 F.3d 236 (1st Cir. 2002).
Case law
B.5 United States v. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 129 F.3d 681 (1st Cir...Voluntary disclosure of attorney-client privileged or work-product protected documents to a third party, such as a government agency, generally constitutes a waiver of those protections.
the general principle that disclosure normally negates the privilege is worth maintaining.
See United States v. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 129 F.3d 681 (1st Cir. 1997).
Commentary
B.6 New York State Bar Association Ethics Opinion 716A lawyer representing an insured client must obtain the client's informed consent after full disclosure before submitting legal bills or related records to an outside auditor retained by the insurance carrier.
A lawyer representing an insured may not submit legal bills to an independent audit company employed by the insurance carrier without the consent of the insured after full disclosure.
See New York State Bar Association Ethics Opinion 716.
Law-firm commentary
B.7 Perkins Coie commentaryCourts are applying existing legal frameworks for attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine to generative AI tools, treating them as instruments rather than third-party recipients that automatically waive protections.
The decisions show courts beginning to apply the law of attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine to generative AI and, thus far, viewing the tasks and their outcomes as neither expanding nor contracting the protections long recognized under existing frameworks.
See Perkins Coie, Heppner and Gilbarco: Courts Apply Privilege and Work Product Protection to Generative AI Tools.
Law-firm commentary
B.8 Sidley Austin commentaryRecent federal court decisions regarding generative AI do not establish new privilege rules but instead apply existing legal frameworks to determine whether AI-assisted communications or work product qualify for protection.
Yet neither decision announced a shift in privilege law. Each applied existing principles to new factual settings.
See Sidley Austin, Generative AI and Privilege: Practical Lessons from Two Early Decisions and What Comes Next.
Law-firm commentary
B.9 Blank Rome commentaryRecent federal court decisions demonstrate that the application of attorney-client privilege and work product protection to AI-generated materials remains unsettled and highly dependent on the specific platform's terms of service and the nature of the AI's involvement in the legal workflow.
Two recent federal court decisions—issued one week apart—reach sharply divergent conclusions on whether materials generated using artificial intelligence (“AI”) platforms are protected by the attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine.
See Blank Rome, AI, Privilege, and Work Product: Conflicting Federal Decisions Create a New Risk Frontier.
Law-firm commentary
B.10 Proskauer Rose commentaryThe decision in United States v. Heppner underscores that using consumer-grade AI tools to process privileged information may result in a waiver of attorney-client privilege and work-product protections due to the lack of a reasonable expectation of confidentiality and the absence of attorney direction.
disclosure of privileged communications to a third party in circumstances that undermine confidentiality (here, the corporation operating the AI tool) may result in waiver.
See Proskauer Rose, Recent Federal Privilege Ruling Related to AI Tools Has Implications for Routine Tax Advisor Arrangements.
Law-firm commentary
B.11 Gibson Dunn, AI Privilege Waivers: SDNY Rules Against Privilege Protection for Consumer AI OutputsIn United States v. Heppner, the SDNY held that materials generated by a consumer AI tool are not protected by attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine when the user acts independently of counsel and the platform's terms of service negate a reasonable expectation of confidentiality.
Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District of New York, in an oral ruling from the bench, held that materials generated through a consumer AI tool at the prompting of a criminal defendant were not protected by either the attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine.
See Gibson Dunn, AI Privilege Waivers: SDNY Rules Against Privilege Protection for Consumer AI Outputs.
Commentary
B.12 ABA Formal Opinion 512, Generative Artificial Intelligence ToolsPDFLawyers utilizing generative artificial intelligence must adhere to the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, specifically regarding duties of competence, confidentiality, communication, supervision, and the charging of reasonable fees.
To ensure clients are protected, lawyers using generative artificial intelligence tools must fully consider their applicable ethical obligations, including their duties to provide competent legal representation, to protect client information, to communicate with clients, to supervise their employees and agents, to advance only meritorious claims and contentions, to ensure candor toward the tribunal, and to charge reasonable fees.
See ABA Formal Opinion 512, Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools.
Vendor documentation
B.13 OpenAI, Enterprise privacyOpenAI provides enterprise customers with ownership and control over their business data, including protections against the use of such data for model training.
We do not train our models on your data by default
See OpenAI, Enterprise privacy.
Vendor documentation
B.14 OpenAI Help Center, Managing data, sharing, and privacy in ChatGPT BusinessChatGPT Business maintains user privacy by excluding workspace data from model training and restricting access to individual chat histories unless explicitly shared by the user.
OpenAI won't train on your workspace's data.
See OpenAI Help Center, Managing data, sharing, and privacy in ChatGPT Business.
Vendor documentation
B.15 Microsoft, Copilot Chat Privacy and ProtectionsMicrosoft provides enterprise data protection for Copilot Chat prompts and responses, ensuring that user data is not used to train foundation models and is processed under specific contractual commitments.
Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat prompts and responses are processed within the Microsoft 365 service boundary, which offers enterprise data protection.
See Microsoft, Copilot Chat Privacy and Protections.
Vendor documentation
B.16 Microsoft, Enterprise data protection in Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot ChatMicrosoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Chat are governed by the Microsoft Products and Services Data Protection Addendum and Product Terms, which establish Microsoft's role as a data processor and provide specific privacy and security commitments regarding customer data and model training.
The use of Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, as used by organizations, is covered by the terms of the Microsoft Products and Services Data Protection Addendum (DPA) and Microsoft Product Terms, with Microsoft acting as a data processor.
See Microsoft, Enterprise data protection in Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat.
Are AI matter summaries and billing narratives privileged?
They may be, but only when the summary or narrative reveals legal judgment or lawyer-directed work product. Raw business facts remain discoverable even when they sit in a legal workspace.
Warner v. Gilbarco Inc. et al., Case No. 2:24-cv-12333 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 10, 2026) shows how the AI overlay may fit into that older structure. On the record before it, the court treated AI-assisted drafting as work product and said “ChatGPT (and other generative AI programs) are tools, not persons”. That does not answer the harder embeddings question. It does show that courts are already separating attorney-client privilege from work-product analysis and looking closely at the actual technical and contractual facts.
E-billing narratives, AI summaries, and diligence syntheses can be more sensitive than the raw underlying documents. Raw business facts do not become privileged merely because they sit in a legal workspace. But a narrative, summary, or issue list can encode mental impressions and later become the precise object of a discovery fight, especially if the company later puts fees or mitigation at issue.
Whether AI-generated matter summaries are privileged, work product, both, or neither is also unsettled. Perhaps lawyer-directed summaries that reflect issue selection and legal framing will look like work product. Perhaps courts will treat them as only factual compilations if they do not materially reveal mental impressions.
Upjohnstill limits the ceiling: underlying facts remain discoverable even when the communication channel is protected.
Sources for this answer
Case law
C.1 Warner v. Gilbarco Inc. et al., Case No. 2:24-cv-12333 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 10, 2...PDFSupports the cited proposition. (Warner v. Gilbarco Inc. et al., Case No. 2:24-cv-12333 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 10, 2...)
ChatGPT (and other generative AI programs) are tools, not persons
See Warner v. Gilbarco Inc. et al., Case No. 2:24-cv-12333 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 10, 2026).
Case law
C.2 Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383 (1981)Supports the cited proposition. (Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383 (1981))
full and frank communication between attorneys and their clients
See Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383 (1981).
Case law
C.3 Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495 (1947)Materials prepared by an attorney in anticipation of litigation, including witness statements and mental impressions, are protected from discovery as work product unless the requesting party demonstrates adequate necessity and justification.
the protective cloak of this privilege does not extend to information which an attorney secures from a witness while acting for his client in anticipation of litigation.
See Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495 (1947).
Commentary
C.4 New York State Bar Association Ethics Opinion 716A lawyer representing an insured client must obtain the client's informed consent after full disclosure before submitting legal bills or related records to an outside auditor retained by the insurance carrier.
A lawyer representing an insured may not submit legal bills to an independent audit company employed by the insurance carrier without the consent of the insured after full disclosure.
See New York State Bar Association Ethics Opinion 716.
Can former counsel get successor-counsel files in malpractice disputes?
Sometimes. Work product may outlast attorney-client privilege, but courts split on whether successor-counsel communications must be disclosed once malpractice, fees, mitigation, or settlement reasonableness becomes disputed.
Work product is tougher, but not uniform across successor-counsel disputes. Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495 (1947) protects interview notes and mental impressions because otherwise much of that work would remain unwritten. On the successor-counsel question, Fischel & Kahn, Ltd. v. Van Straaten Gallery, Inc., 189 Ill. 2d 579 (2000) and Miller v. Superior Court, 111 Cal. App. 3d 390 (1980) protected later communications where successor counsel arrived after the alleged wrong was already complete. Pappas v. Holloway, 114 Wash. 2d 198, 787 P.2d 30 (1990) went the other way when withholding successor-counsel communications would deny the original lawyers information the court considered vital to their defense. The split predates AI, but AI-era transitions will likely make it more visible because summaries, logs, and billing narratives create more artifacts about the handoff itself.
On successor-counsel communications, the firm commentary is more aligned than the case law. McGuireWoods states the split plainly: some courts force disclosure of successor-counsel communications in malpractice disputes and others do not. Hinshaw & Culbertson frames the disclosure-friendly line as an at-issue problem, not a categorical rule: once a client makes later legal advice central to causation, mitigation, or settlement reasonableness, the privilege position weakens. McAndrew Vuotto reads New Jersey's Lane Construction line the same way. The shared conclusion is narrow but important: the danger often grows after the transition, when the transition itself becomes evidence in a later fee or malpractice fight.
When a transition becomes a malpractice or fee fight, work product may outlast privilege, but not uniformly. Illinois and California are friendlier to successor-counsel secrecy than Washington. That state split means the legal posture after the handoff can matter as much as the handoff itself.
How far successor-counsel waiver goes once the dispute turns adversarial is still jurisdiction-specific. The split between
MillerandFischel, on one side, andPappas, on the other, is old. AI-era transitions may make the factual record denser because summaries, billing narratives, and transfer logs can themselves become exhibits in the later fight.
Sources for this answer
Case law
D.1 Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495 (1947)Materials prepared by an attorney in anticipation of litigation, including witness statements and mental impressions, are protected from discovery as work product unless the requesting party demonstrates adequate necessity and justification.
the protective cloak of this privilege does not extend to information which an attorney secures from a witness while acting for his client in anticipation of litigation.
See Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495 (1947).
Case law
D.2 Fischel & Kahn, Ltd. v. Van Straaten Gallery, Inc., 189 Ill. 2d 579 (2000)A client does not automatically waive attorney-client or work product privileges with subsequent counsel simply by filing a legal malpractice action against a former attorney.
we hold that van Straaten has not waived the attorney-client privilege in this case with respect to Pope & John by filing a malpractice action seeking attorney fees and settlement costs of the Mesirow litigation.
See Fischel & Kahn, Ltd. v. Van Straaten Gallery, Inc., 189 Ill. 2d 579 (2000).
Case law
D.3 Miller v. Superior Court (Hession), 111 Cal. App. 3d 390 (1980)The attorney-client privilege is not waived simply because a plaintiff files a lawsuit that places their state of mind or knowledge in issue, as there is no statutory basis for such a waiver.
We reaffirm our holding in Lohman v. Superior Court (1978) 81 Cal. App. 3d 90 [146 Cal. Rptr. 171], that the attorney-client privilege is not waived by plaintiff in this situation placing in issue the content of a confidential communication.
See Miller v. Superior Court (Hession), 111 Cal. App. 3d 390 (1980).
Case law
D.4 Pappas v. Holloway, 114 Wash. 2d 198, 787 P.2d 30 (1990)A client who sues their attorney for malpractice waives the attorney-client privilege regarding communications relevant to the malpractice claim, including communications with other attorneys involved in the underlying litigation.
In this instance, the Holloways cannot counterclaim against Pappas for malpractice and at the same time conceal from him communications which have a direct bearing on this issue simply because the attorney-client privilege protects them.
See Pappas v. Holloway, 114 Wash. 2d 198, 787 P.2d 30 (1990).
Law-firm commentary
D.5 McGuireWoods commentaryCourts are divided on whether clients waive attorney-client privilege when suing their former lawyers, with some jurisdictions requiring disclosure of communications with successor counsel while others do not, and most courts allowing discovery of communications with the defendant's co-counsel.
Clients and lawyers asserting claims against each other can waive privilege protection without disclosing any privileged communications.
See McGuireWoods, Clients Suing Their Lawyers For Malpractice Risk A Waiver Of Communications With Successor Counsel.
Law-firm commentary
D.6 Hinshaw & Culbertson commentaryA plaintiff in a legal malpractice action may implicitly waive the attorney-client privilege regarding communications with subsequent counsel by placing those communications at issue in the litigation.
the former client’s legal malpractice action against prior counsel placed its otherwise protected communications with subsequent counsel “at issue” and that the former client thus waived any privilege.
See Hinshaw & Culbertson, Plaintiff's Malpractice Suit Placed Attorney-Client Communications With Subsequent Counsel 'At Issue' and Plaintiff Thus Waived Privilege.
Commentary
D.7 McAndrew Vuotto commentaryThe New Jersey Appellate Division's decision in Lane Construction Co., Inc. v. Munday clarifies the standards for piercing the attorney-client privilege in legal malpractice litigation when a defendant seeks to access communications between a plaintiff and their successor counsel.
The Appellate Division, citing In re Kozlov, 79 N.J. 232, 242-43 (1979), detailed the three requirements for piercing the attorney-client privilege
See McAndrew Vuotto, New Jersey Decision Potentially Creates Complexity in Attorney-Client Privilege and Legal Malpractice Contribution Law.