The Law of Privilege

Abstract This authoritative text, written by expert authors in the field in a clearly structured and approachable style, provides a comprehensive reference to legal professional privilege in both contentious and non-contentious contexts. The book addresses both legal advice and litigation privilege, as well as without prejudice privilege and the privilege against self-incrimination in both the civil and the criminal contexts. With broad coverage of how it arises, how it is lost, and its limits, the book begins with an outline of the historical origins and the development of privilege into a substantive constitutional right of great significance and the law and policy underlying privilege, before going on to provide clear guidance on issues that arise regularly in civil and criminal practice. These issues include exceptions to privilege (including a detailed analysis of the iniquity exception), multi-jurisdictional issues, the role and significance of dominant purpose in the creation of documents, procedural hoops, and problem areas such as pre-existing and partly privileged documents, criminal investigations and DPAs, regulatory investigations and inquiries, the role of the prosecution, and the rights of shareholders to documents. It also covers loss of privilege, for example through the loss of confidentiality, and the various types of waiver (express waiver, collateral waiver, limited waiver, and implied waiver).