Work Email and The Attorney-Client Privilege

Sep 23, 2011

Email that you receive at your work email address may not be confidential.

Many people do not realize that email in your work email account may well belong to your employer, not you.  That is because your employer owns the system and provides the service to you.  And, you may well have signed something in your employee handbook by which you agreed to this fact.

This matters because under some situations, having an attorney send you emails at your work email address may waive the attorney-client privilege. 

That in turn means that there is some chance that an opposing attorney could force your employer to turn over the emails between you and your attorney that went to your work email account. 

The bottom line:  If you have an attorney, get a personal email account and have all emails from your attorney sent there.  And, as a broader rule, do not use your work email account for any personal business.  

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