In the course of researching the records of client Fenton, who is disputing a si
ID: 398052 • Letter: I
Question
In the course of researching the records of client Fenton, who is disputing a significant sum with the Internal Revenue Service, you learn that she owes a great deal of money to Dubois and Moylan, the law firm that handled her divorce four years ago. Can you disclose this information to the lawyer handling Fenton's tax case for your firm? Is this information protected by attorney/client privilege? By work-product privilege? This is a very basic scenario with no case study. A general answer is all I need.
Explanation / Answer
Explanation:
- In case of personal information you cannot share the personal details of a person without his or her consent as per US Privacy law. When it's about the state government or any agency you need to share information of person by law.
- This information is not protected by attorney/clients privilege because there is crime or fraud is involved with client thus information of client is not protected under this doctrine. While in work-product privilege document or tangible things being protected in anticipation of legal action taken by another party or representative so that documents can not be declared. So under work product doctrine this record cannot be shared.