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53 U. Mem. L. Rev. 1 (2022-2023)
Joint Representations and the Attorney-Client Privilege

handle is hein.journals/umem53 and id is 5 raw text is: 








       Joint Representations and the

           Attorney-Client Privilege

                     DOUGLAS  R. RICHMOND*

I. INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................  1
II. CREATING AN ATTORNEY-CLIENT  RELATIONSHIP  .......................... 6
      A. Attorney-Client Relationship Essentials ............................ 7
      B. Illustrative Implied Attorney-Client Relationship Cases
          Involving Alleged Joint Representations......................... 8
      C. Comparing  the Outcomes in Hinerman and In re DISH
          N etw ork ......................................................................... .  16
III. FINDING A JOINT ATTORNEY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP  .................. 17
      A. Joint versus Separate Concurrent Representations............ 18
      B. A Matter of Common  Interest ......................................... 26
IV. THE PRIVILEGE IN CONNECTION  WITH PROFESSIONAL  LIABILITY
      CLAIMS  AGAINST JOINT CLIENTS' COMMON   LAWYER   ............. 29
V . C ONCLUSION ...............................................................................  35




                         I. INTRODUCTION

       Lawyers routinely represent more than one client in a matter of
common   interest.' In litigation, for example, a lawyer may represent a
corporation and one of its employees who have been sued as defendants
in the same case.2 A business lawyer may represent multiple clients in

     *   Managing Director, Aon Professional Services, Olathe, KS. J.D., Univer-
sity of Kansas. Opinions expressed here are solely those of the author.
     1.  The term 'common interest' typically entails an identical (or nearly iden-
tical) legal interest as opposed to a merely similar interest. FDIC v. Ogden Corp.,
202 F.3d 454, 461 (1st Cir. 2000).
    2.   See also Supreme Forest Prods. v. Kennedy, No. 3:16-cv-0054, 2017 WL
120644, at *2 (D. Conn. Jan. 12, 2017) (finding a joint representation where a lawyer
represented two clients as plaintiffs in separate lawsuits asserting highly similar


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