Legal professional privilege shields lawyer–client communications from compulsory disclosure — but only where the strict requirements of its two limbs are met.
A privileged document can be withheld even from the court itself, which makes the boundaries of privilege some of the most contested ground in litigation. This chapter starts with the nature of privilege, who owns it, how long it lasts, and how it differs from mere confidentiality, before examining the two limbs in detail: legal advice privilege, including the narrow corporate 'client' and the trap of pre-existing documents, and litigation privilege, with its reasonable contemplation and dominant purpose requirements. It then covers joint and common interest privilege, and the ways protection can be lost through waiver, selective disclosure or the crime/fraud exception. It closes with mistaken disclosure and the mechanics of withholding privileged documents during civil disclosure.
