When an employer’s lawyer receives copies of an employee’s private communications with counsel, which the employer located in the employee’s business e-mail file or on the employee’s workplace computer or other device, neither Rule 4.4(b) nor any other Rule requires the employer’s lawyer to notify opposing counsel of the receipt of the communications. (Rule 4.4(b) does not expressly address this situation, because e-mails between an employee and his or her counsel are not “inadvertently sent” by either of them. A “document is inadvertently sent” to someone when it is accidentally transmitted to an unintended recipient, as occurs when an e-mail or letter is misaddressed or when a document is accidentally attached to an e-mail or accidentally included among other documents produced in discovery. But a document is not “inadvertently sent”when it is retrieved by a third person from a public or private place where it is stored or left.) At the same time, court decisions, civil procedure rules, or other law may impose such a notification duty, which a lawyer may then be subject to discipline for violating. If the law governing potential disclosure is unclear, Rule 1.6(b)(6) allows the employer’s lawyer to disclose that the employer has retrieved the employee’s attorney-client e-mail communications to the extent the lawyer reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to comply with the relevant law. If no law can reasonably be read as establishing a notification obligation, however, then the decision whether to give notice must be made by the employer-client, and the employer’s lawyer must explain the implications of disclosure, and the available alternatives, as necessary to enable the employer to make an informed decision. ABA Formal Opinion 11-460 (Aug. 4, 2011).
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