Specter Responds to DOJ’s Revisions of Attorney-Client Privilege Guidelines

Today, Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the following statement in response to the Department of Justice’s revised attorney-client privilege guidelines:

“The revised guidelines are a step in the right direction but they leave many problems unresolved so that legislation will still be necessary. For example, there is no change in the benefit to corporations to waive the privilege by giving facts obtained by the corporate attorneys from the individuals in order to escape prosecution or to have a deferred prosecution agreement. The new guidelines expressly encourage corporations to comply with the waiver and disclosure programs of other agencies including the SEC and EPA. Legislation, of course, would bind all federal agencies and could not be changed except by an Act of Congress.”

Senator Specter sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip on July 10th that outlined his concerns with the Department’s proposed changes which were affirmed with the new internal guidelines announced today.

On June 26, 2008, Senator Specter re-introduced his Attorney-Client Privilege Protection Act (S.3217). The bill seeks to protect the sanctity of the attorney-client relationship by forcing the Department of Justice to revise its corporate charging policies embodied in the 1999 and 2003 memos authored by then-Deputy Attorney Generals Eric Holder and Larry Thompson, respectively, which were revised by then-Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty in 2006.

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