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Warning: Not All E-Mails Are Created Equal

By Brendan McKenna

The attorney-client privilege extends to e-mails exchanged between a lawyer and his or her client ... unless you send it from work. A California court of appeal held an e-mail sent from a client to his or her attorney from a work e-mail account is not a privileged or confidential communication. The unanimous decision held that this type of communication was comparable to consulting your lawyer in your ?employer?s conference room, in a loud voice, with the door open? where any reasonable person would expect the employer to overhear it. The court supported its decision with the fact that the employer had a policy that stated that company e-mail accounts should only be used for company business, that e-mails were not private, and that e-mails could be monitored to ensure that employees complied with the policy. Wired's Threat Level said it best: ?Case law on electronic privacy in the workplace is slowly evolving, and not always for the best.? The courts have come to opposing decisions in regards to communications transmitted using employer-provided devises. In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court held that text messages on an employer-provided pager are not private. However, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that e-mails...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on January 19, 2011 (boomark / email).