Are Lawyer-Client Emails Sent on the Computer of Clients Employer Privileged?
2/15/2010 This article is reprinted with permission from The Pennsylvania Bar News. Jeffrey P. Lewis is a member in the West Chester office of the Pittsburgh-based law firm of Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott, LLC. He serves on the PBA Professional Liabilty Committee. He can be reached at 610.738.8850, and by email at jlewis@eckertseamans.com. By: Jeffrey Lewis Previously, this author reported on a New York case, Scott v. Beth Israel Medical Center, Inc., 17 Misc. 3d 934, 847 N.Y.S.2d 436 (2007), where an employee unsuccessfully argued that he had sent confidential communications to his counsel on his employer’s web-based e-mail account, which was installed on a computer owned by the employer. In that instance, the employer, a medical center, had a formal e-mail policy that provides that the employer’s computer system should be used for medical center business only and declares that employees have no personal privacy right “in any material created, received, saved, or sent using Medical
