BLS Blog

Adversaries often challenge each other’s privilege calls in the thick of litigation, and sometimes those challenges are elevated to a court’s in camera review. In Governo Law Firm LLC v. CMBG3 Law LLC, et al., Judge Salinger, sitting in the Massachusetts Business Litigation Session, ruled that the attorney-client privilege protected from production a confidential email from the defendants to their counsel “seeking feedback on a draft press release . . . embedded in the text of the email.”

After reviewing the email in camera, Judge Salinger ruled that “it is evident that this defendant sent this confidential communication to counsel in order to elicit legal advice as to whether issuing a press release in this form could create any legal exposure for the Defendants.” Although the communication “does not contain legal advice,” “that does not matter,” explained Judge Salinger. “Any confidential communication between attorney and client, in either direction, is privileged if it [is] made for the purpose of obtaining or giving legal advice—whether the communication conveys legal advice or not.”

In Kirk Ramey v. Trustees of Boston University, et al., Judge Krupp, sitting in the Business Litigation Session, ruled that Ramey, a former BU research scientist, was entitled to a trial on his claim that defendants, BU and Dr. Edward Damiano, breached an oral agreement to provide Ramey an equity stake in Beta Bionics, a medical device company.

The oral contract, Ramey alleges, arose from two conversations he had with Dr. Damiano, a BU biomedical engineering professor. One of the conversations took place before Ramey accepted a position in Dr. Damiano’s lab. Dr. Damiano did not dispute that the conversations took place, but denied that he had agreed to give Ramey an equity interest in Beta Bionics, which had not yet been formed when Ramey began work. Neither conversation was memorialized in writing.