A pre-recorded streaming AUDIO replay of the May 2020 webcast, The Attorney-Client Privilege and Work Product Doctrine in Virginia, featuring Tom Spahn.
Topics Covered
Every litigator must know these rules.
The attorney-client privilege enjoys a unique status among all legal doctrines. For many reasons, it stands alone as the most important subject that lawyers must understand. By contrast, dramatically different rules control the work product doctrine. Failing to appreciate work product doctrine principles can involve even higher stakes because, by definition, this doctrine involves litigation or anticipated litigation. Most lawyers understand the broad contours of both subjects, but how many appreciate the many complexities of both, including how to assert either in the context of an ongoing dispute?
Tom Spahn is the nation’s foremost expert on the attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine. His 1,531-page book, The Attorney-Client Privilege and The Work Product Doctrine: A Practitioner's Guide (3d edition 2013), is the definitive work on the topic. He also prepared a Virginia-specific guide of only(!) 385 pages, focusing the discussion on how the privilege and doctrine function in Virginia. Both share the same chapter and section numbering scheme, and are supported by his online database of up-to-date cases keyed to each section. As he demonstrates in all of his many lectures on ethics, Tom is an engaging and entertaining speaker.