Re: on receiving LEGAL emails from one's OWN lawyer: *NO FORWARD*

David Combs <dkcombs@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I just received an email from my lawyer about some
> unimportant thing, and by knee-jerk I forwarded
> it to my wife (as I do all of them from him, since
> she handles records, etc).
>
> Fine and dandy -- mutt works just fine.
>
> Which, maybe, is the problem.
>
> At the bottom of each email I get from him is
> a standard "boilerplate":
>
>
>
> | PURSUANT TO DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY CIRCULAR 230, THIS ELECTRONIC MAIL
> | AND ANY ATTACHMENT HERETO, IS NOT INTENDED OR WRITTEN TO BE USED, AND
> | MAY NOT BE USED BY THE RECIPIENT, FOR THE PURPOSES OF AVOIDING ANY
> | FEDERAL TAX PENALTY WHICH MAY BE ASSERTED.
> |
> | THIS ELECTRONIC MAIL MAY BE SUBJECT TO THE ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE OR
> | THE ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT PRIVILEGE OR OTHERWISE BE CONFIDENTIAL. ANY
> | DISSEMINATION, COPYING OR USE OF THIS E-MAIL BY OR TO ANYONE OTHER THAN
> | THE DESIGNATED AND INTENDED RECIPIENT(S) IS UNAUTHORIZED. IF YOU HAVE
> | RECEIVED THIS MESSAGE IN ERROR, PLEASE DELETE IT FROM YOUR SYSTEM
> | IMMEDIATELY.
>
> For the first time actually *reading* this thing -- and having just
> forwarded the email(!) -- it suddenly came to me that this
> "attorney-client privilege", a very *valuable* (legal) privilege,
> 100% dissappears as soon as the communication becomes NOT confined
> to just you and your lawyer.
>
> That is, if you're involved in any kind of trial or suit, your
> opponent can require you to hand over all such no-longer-100%-private
> letters, emails, or ANYTHING *to* him!
>
> Like someone sues you on the claim that some piece of software
> you either wrote or use violates "his patent" on some algorithm
> or the like, and you have to hire a lawyer, etc, etc, and
> you end up forwarding one or of his emails off to, say, the very
> anti-software-patent Stallman (rms) -- and then sometime later
> in "discovery" you're required to hand over all that stuff --
> well, you see the problem.
>
> (ie, you likely end up *losing* the lawsuit!)
>
>
> MY PROPOSAL FOR MUTT:
>
> Some kind of user-settable regexp-slot that if filled-in, and
> each time you give the command "forward this email"
> it uses that regexp for searching the to-be-forwarded email,
>
> and ends up matching somewhere in the letter, *then*: prints oout
> a warning (user-settable) message (warning to you) and
> then asking "are you ABSOLUTELY SURE that you want to
> FORWARD this email?", requiring maybe a "yesyes" or
> "ouioui" or "sisi" confirmation.
>
> Any comments, suggestions, on this idea?

IANAL, but any sensitive information should be encrypted anyway.

Joachim
.

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