[council] Fwd: Fw: American Bar Association Opinion 480

[Anne ICANN]

Anne Aikman-Scalese
GNSO Councilor
NomCom Non-Voting 2022-2024
anneicanngnso at gmail.com


Dear Council Members (cc to Kathy Kleiman)

In yesterday's Town Hall, there appeared to still be some question as to
whether attorneys are required to keep the identity of a client
confidential unless they have consent to disclosure.  As to the U.S., a
colleague referred me to American Bar Association Formal Opinion 480.  An
excerpt appears below and the entire opinion is at the link.


"As Comment [2] emphasizes, “[a] fundamental principle in the client-lawyer
relationship is that, in the absence of the client’s informed consent, the
lawyer must not reveal information relating to the representation.” This
confidentiality rule “applies not only to matters communicated in
confidence by the client but also to all information relating to the
representation, whatever its source.”6 In other words, the scope of
protection afforded by Rule 1.6 is far broader than attorney-client
privileged information. Unless one of the exceptions to Rule 1.6(a) is
applicable, a lawyer is prohibited from commenting publicly about any
information related to a representation. Even client identity is protected
under Model Rule 1.6.

https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/professional_responsibility/aba_formal_opinion_480.authcheckdam.pdf

Thank you,
Anne
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/council/attachments/20230311/f84501a7/attachment.html>