Work E-Mail Not Protected by Attorney-Client Privilege

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
A California court of appeals has ruled that you have no attorney-client privilege if you e-mail your lawyer from a work computer. I see where they are coming from but this explanation doesn't make sense at all, does it?

[T]he e-mails sent via company computer under the circumstances of this case were akin to consulting her lawyer in her employer’s conference room, in a loud voice, with the door open, so that any reasonable person would expect that their discussion of her complaints about her employer would be overheard,” (.pdf) the court wrote.
Click to expand...
 
I could see this explanation making sense if they were talking about CALLING your lawyer from a work phone. But e-mail?

They should have just said..."Duh, it's your work computer...the company can access those e-mails"
 
One of the first things people sign when they come to work at my employers is a privacy statement that all computers, network resources, and commincation systems are property of the company and are monitored and reviewed.

Seems like a no brainer.
 
That analogy is as bad as the stupid crap you read on the Steam COD forums.

It's nothing but bad analogies.
 
demingo said:
One of the first things people sign when they come to work at my employers is a privacy statement that all computers, network resources, and commincation systems are property of the company and are monitored and reviewed.

Seems like a no brainer.
Click to expand...

That statement is presented to me everytime I log in.
 
demingo said:
One of the first things people sign when they come to work at my employers is a privacy statement that all computers, network resources, and commincation systems are property of the company and are monitored and reviewed.

Seems like a no brainer.
Click to expand...

But not every workplace is like that. Some don't have you sign off, and on top of it have policies that say reading other people's email is a violation of company policy. In those cases it sure does seem like there's an expectation of privacy.

Myself, I've always avoided using work resources for personal stuff as much as possible. With the advent of smart phones, it makes it pretty easy to be 100% successful at that.
 
This window comes up after CTRL-ALT-DELETE. Seems pretty clear to me.

IMG_20110119_090447.jpg
 
Emails are often used as evidence anyways. It'd be too messy if they also say that emails can be protected by privacy rights.
 
eh, if you are suing your company and have emails in exchange that were sent to your lawyer then it would be stupid to assume they would be confidential.
 
I understand the theory, but I still think this is just plain wrong.
 
Jabroni31169 said:
You should have no reasonable expectation of privacy at any place you work.
Click to expand...

I disagree, you SHOULD have a reasonable expectation of privacy, just that workers are all too willing to sign over their rights to a company.

It's no different than the government taking away freedoms, and if employees refused then companies would have no choice but to accept it.
 
At one point my boss was so paranoid he wanted a copy of all company emails that came through our server copied to his account.
 
stealthy123 said:
I disagree, you SHOULD have a reasonable expectation of privacy, just that workers are all too willing to sign over their rights to a company.

It's no different than the government taking away freedoms, and if employees refused then companies would have no choice but to accept it.
Click to expand...

Citizen rights have nothing to do with private property. You can't opt out of the government making your argument laughable at best.

If all employees refused then you'd quickly find a bunch of new employees.
 
Hrm....yes.....no.....Really bad analogy.....but I do agree in part that there should be no perceived privacy at work. There's no reason to expect your employer to be your confidant in private matters....
 
stealthy123 said:
I disagree, you SHOULD have a reasonable expectation of privacy, just that workers are all too willing to sign over their rights to a company.

It's no different than the government taking away freedoms, and if employees refused then companies would have no choice but to accept it.
Click to expand...

Why the hell would a private entity be expected to respect your privacy? You use their server, you follow their rules. I'll be damned if one of our employees get away with crime on the company dime. I welcome employees using Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail on their work computers so they can keep their personal BS off my email server.

Freedom is being thrown around too much in the wrong places. Your freedom is your freedom against government oppression, just as freedom of speech is your freedom to speak out against the government. None of those apply in businesses nor your own home.

Go ahead, tell Steve and Kyle you have the right to free speech on this forum. I dare you.
 
Not only that, but the fact that your usual email traffic is entirely sent in clear text should be a big clue as why to not use it as a method for confidential communication :p Plain text emails aren't a letter or an envelope, they are billboards. Treat them that way!
 
I'm just waiting for a case where a federal government employee is working at a contractor company site and sends an email which contains "State Secrets" as deemed by the Feds but the contractor claims emails sent from a work computer can have no secret clause. Would be an interesting case.

Rock meet [H]ard Place!
 
jcollett said:
I'm just waiting for a case where a federal government employee is working at a contractor company site and sends an email which contains "State Secrets" as deemed by the Feds but the contractor claims emails sent from a work computer can have no secret clause. Would be an interesting case.

Rock meet [H]ard Place!
Click to expand...

Contractors have to be cleared to handle such information and that mean they must meet certain criteria in the handling of that information. Basically it's do it the way the feds say or GTFO.
 
This is not a case of attorney-client privilege, that still is absolutely valid, your attorney is not going to spill the beans, however if you talk to your attorney right in front of the person you're going to sue, don't expect that to not be used, kind of like using your work to send emails to an attorney over suing your work!
 
Steve said:
A California court of appeals has ruled that you have no attorney-client privilege if you e-mail your lawyer from a work computer. I see where they are coming from but this explanation doesn't make sense at all, does it?
Click to expand...

Its more accurate to say that in a case involving an employee suing an employer, the employee's e-mails to her lawyer are not protected by the attorney-client privilege. I don't read anything in here as a broad waiver of attorney-client privilege whenever employers computers are used.
 
A lot of companies, in fact any traded company, had to keep EVERY outgoing and incoming email through their servers for legal reasons for a given amount of time. I'm half surprised that they don't force you to record all phone calls while at it as they not only want emails, but IM traffic as well. The reasoning is that if a lawsuit is brought against you for any reason any and all electronic records would be preserved. Normally it is something like you have to keep them for 6 - 18 months depending on your type of business, but then the moment a lawsuit is brought against you then you have to keep them until the lawsuit is setttled. If you are always in court, well better just plan on keeping them all forever.

So given that they need to access all emails then yes, you would have the right to access the email you sent your lawyer as they would need to bring up ANY email related to the case. and your emial would be related.
 
Exavior said:
A lot of companies, in fact any traded company, had to keep EVERY outgoing and incoming email through their servers for legal reasons for a given amount of time. I'm half surprised that they don't force you to record all phone calls while at it as they not only want emails, but IM traffic as well. The reasoning is that if a lawsuit is brought against you for any reason any and all electronic records would be preserved. Normally it is something like you have to keep them for 6 - 18 months depending on your type of business, but then the moment a lawsuit is brought against you then you have to keep them until the lawsuit is setttled. If you are always in court, well better just plan on keeping them all forever.
Click to expand...

Most companies will want to keep any records to the bare minimum. While you have to keep some records for various legal reasons (SEC requirements, etc.), having any of the rest of things you're describing is usually not helpful.

If you have IM records/phone recordings/etc, it's another set of information that you have to (a) identify, (b) have an attorney review, (c) turn over to the other side if it's relevant and covered by discovery requests, which means (d) they may depose the company or the particular employee about the contents. None of that is a positive, because it's all expensive and time consuming. Moreover, as a defendant, the other side is normally trying to build their case with your documents. If you don't have any documents, they can't build anything.
 
I'd say the analogy is poorly constructed, but it would give a layman the basic context required to understand that email in general is not private, and work/company email is less so.

Standard email setup at a corporation:

1. All incoming and outgoing emails are held in a retention account.
2. All emails are backed up, regardless if they report they're deleted to the user
3. All emails are scanned for keywords that may be sensative, including medical terms, foul language, legal terms, the names of executives, the names of other employees, etc..
4. All of this information is reviewed and accessible by multiple members of staff, e.g.
a. your boss
b. your boss's boss
c. your boss's boss's boss
d. your it help-desk staff
e. your it help-desk's supervisor
f. your it help-desk's supervisor's supervisor
g. department heads
h. certain vendors
i. staff of the company you're emailing with a similar set of policies.

Now, imagine that when you send an email under those sets of restrictions all of those people being in the same room, or a small subset, like your boss, the it help-disk, and a department head like... hr, and when they're notified by the keyword matching tool it's escalated to their immediate superiors (which is where the "Shouting" analogy comes in) and all of it being okay to "overhear" because it's within the company's system (i.e. the conferences room with an open door).

Work E-mail has NEVER been protected, there is no expectation of privacy. Send personal emails from your personal email accounts.
 
There was a case in Florida, where a company had not kept emails for seven years, they ended up being at fault for destroying evidence.
 
I agree with most here that I agree with the ruling but don't agree with the bad analogy.
 
Azhar said:
Why the hell would a private entity be expected to respect your privacy? You use their server, you follow their rules. I'll be damned if one of our employees get away with crime on the company dime. I welcome employees using Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail on their work computers so they can keep their personal BS off my email server.

Freedom is being thrown around too much in the wrong places. Your freedom is your freedom against government oppression, just as freedom of speech is your freedom to speak out against the government. None of those apply in businesses nor your own home.

Go ahead, tell Steve and Kyle you have the right to free speech on this forum. I dare you.
Click to expand...

The only thing that matters to a company, or that is should matter, is whether or not an employee does their job well. Nothing else should matter.

Businesses have no business dicking around with people as long as they do their job. Nanny companies are retarded, and sadly they are the norm.
 
stealthy123 said:
The only thing that matters to a company, or that is should matter, is whether or not an employee does their job well. Nothing else should matter.

Businesses have no business dicking around with people as long as they do their job. Nanny companies are retarded, and sadly they are the norm.
Click to expand...

Business certainly have a right to monitor their property to ensure it's not being misused.

Employees have no business dicking around with property that isn't theirs and need not worry as long as they are doing their jobs. See how over simplified but otherwise meaningless blanket statements can easily go both ways?
 
PurduEE said:
Most companies will want to keep any records to the bare minimum. While you have to keep some records for various legal reasons (SEC requirements, etc.), having any of the rest of things you're describing is usually not helpful.

If you have IM records/phone recordings/etc, it's another set of information that you have to (a) identify, (b) have an attorney review, (c) turn over to the other side if it's relevant and covered by discovery requests, which means (d) they may depose the company or the particular employee about the contents. None of that is a positive, because it's all expensive and time consuming. Moreover, as a defendant, the other side is normally trying to build their case with your documents. If you don't have any documents, they can't build anything.
Click to expand...

I didn't make up the law, the government did. Law states that you need to keep IM data as well as emails, it is part of Sarbanes-Oxley. http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=123236

Under SOX sections 404 (Management Assessment of Internal Controls) and 105(b), there is a consensus that best practices for compliance means establishing processes for managing electronic communications and a system for archiving relevant messages, and that instant messages should be included in these efforts.
Click to expand...

They want to make sure that they aren't missing stuff by having people use IM instead of email. Some companies have gotten in trouble for not recording text messages. I went though all of this stuff a few years back and could have gave you a lot more links then to the rules, that was the first that i found when doing a quick search.

They even include some files in all of that also. There was a case where Sprint got in trouble for deleting maps off of their file server that ended up being needed for a case.

drakken said:
There was a case in Florida, where a company had not kept emails for seven years, they ended up being at fault for destroying evidence.
Click to expand...

A lot of companies have gotten reamed for that. Different companies have different amounts of time that they have to keep records. some can get away with a few years some need about 10 years i think. however as soon as you enter into a lawsuit or have one brought against you then you have to keep all emails until the suit is over. Can't find it how but I seen a page before that gave a breakdown of what the rules where as far as what you had to keep for how long based on the type of company that you were.
 
Steve said:
A California court of appeals has ruled that you have no attorney-client privilege if you e-mail your lawyer from a work computer. I see where they are coming from but this explanation doesn't make sense at all, does it?
Click to expand...

All I can say is, "well duh!" Any email you send on the corporate network is company property. Face it, they keep that stuff backed up for years (by law, I believe they have to). I'm shocked that anyone would be dumb enough to send sensitive email with company email. I try not to read personal email on work computers. I keep a separate non-work phone so that they no as little as possible about me (not that my emails are that interesting).

99% of the time, your employer is not your friend and should be, IMO, viewed with suspicion.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top