Can Transactional Parties Rely On The Common Interest Privilege?

In many situations, parties to a transaction wish to share legal advice among themselves. Parties whose interests are aligned may wish to share and discuss these legal opinions, so they can save money by alleviating the need for each party to seek its own separate opinion. Can they assume these communications are protected by the so-called “common interest privilege?” The answer is “perhaps,” explain attorneys Alison L. Nadel and Erika N. Pont, in a Today’s General Counsel article. They look at some precedents, and lay out four things you can do to increase the likelihood of your being able to invoke what is, they explain, not really an independent privilege, but rather an exception to the rule that waives attorney-client communications and work product if they are disclosed to a third party.