Frank Lagorio's Weblog

Is Sarbanes Oxley a Trojan Horse for Attorney Client Priviliege? In recent discussions around compliance with Federal Mandates such as Sarbanes Oxley, a new topic has emerged. Do the regulations erode attorney client privilege? The thinking goes like this: email is protected when there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. If I send email to my corporate attorney and that email is reviewed on a random sample by a compliance officer, then my attorney client privilege is possibly compromised. If I am at my company and dealing with some matter and because I use a key work like sexual harassment and the keyword causes a key word review for questionable material, does that breach attorney client privilege? If so in either case does that mean that compliance officers should officers of the court, ie. attorneys or potentially legal staff who can maintain attorney client privilege? Or should legal department email be excluded from review? Can the proverbial cat be put back in the bag? This is only one issue among many that will require close review of corporate policies in general and email policies in particular.