14. Privileges: Extension to Pre-Trial Matters and Client Legal Privilege

14–1 The client legal privilege provisions of the uniform Evidence Acts should apply to any compulsory process for disclosure, such as pre-trial discovery and the production of documents in response to a subpoena and in non-curial contexts including search warrants and notices to produce documents, as well as court proceedings.

14–2 Section 117(1)(a) of the uniform Evidence Acts should be amended to allow that a ‘client’ of a lawyer be defined as a person who engages a lawyer to provide professional legal services, or who employs a lawyer for that purpose, including under a contract of service (for example, as in-house counsel).

14–3 The definition of a ‘lawyer’ in the Dictionary of the uniform Evidence Acts should be amended to provide that a lawyer is a person who is admitted to the legal profession in an Australian jurisdiction or in any other jurisdiction.

14–4 Section 118(c) of the uniform Evidence Acts should be amended to replace the words ‘the client or a lawyer’ with ‘the client, a lawyer or another person’.

14–5 Section 122(2) of the uniform Evidence Acts should be amended to provide that evidence may be adduced where a client or party has acted in a manner inconsistent with the maintenance of the privilege. The existing provisions should remain in a form appropriate to give guidance as to what acts are or are not acts inconsistent with the maintenance of the privilege.

14–6 If Recommendation 14–1 is adopted, s 123 of the uniform Evidence Acts should remain applicable only to the adducing of evidence at trial by an accused in a criminal proceeding.