Granting the plaintiff’s writ application, the Louisiana First Circuit held as follows: “The district court’s April 19, 2021 ruling ordering Jerri Smitko to produce a copy of the client file of Timothy Dardar to defendant herein is vacated. Neither a subpoena nor a court order shall be issued to a lawyer to appear or testify in any civil proceeding, including pretrial discovery, where the purpose of the subpoena or order is to ask the lawyer to reveal information about a client or former client obtained in the course of representing the client unless, after a contradictory hearing, it has been determined that the information sought is not protected from disclosure by any applicable privilege or work product rule. La. Code Evid. art. 508(A). The determination that a lawyer-client privilege is not applicable to the testimony shall not bind the client or former client unless the client or former client was given notice of the time, place, and substance of the hearing and had an opportunity to fully participate in that hearing. La. Code Evid. art. 508(C).”

 

Dardar v. Dardar, No.2021-0424 (La. App. 1^st Cir. 6/7/2021), 2021 WL 2310433.