Privileged communication is defined, by the Court of Claims of Ohio in Cincinnati Enquirer v. Hamilton County Board Of Commissioners, as a communication between a lawyer and client that would facilitate the attorney’s legal advice.
For example, in Ohio, to assert the privilege, which is under the broader concept of attorney-client privilege, the proponent must show that the communication is a confidential communication involving legal advice.
A client’s voluntary disclosure to a third party of the privileged communications destroys the attorney-client privilege because this disclosure of voluntary communication is inconsistent with an assertion of the privilege.
As noted by the Court of Appeals of New York in Ambac Assurance Corp. v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., generally, communications between an attorney and a client that are made in the presence of or later disclosed to third parties are not protected by the attorney-client privilege. However, under the common interest doctrine, an attorney-client communication that is disclosed to a third party remains privileged if the third party shares a common legal interest with the client who made the communication and the communication is made in furtherance of that common legal interest.
See confidential communication.
[Last updated in January of 2024 by the Wex Definitions Team]