Lawyers to the fore as courts tighten screws on privilege claims

Law firms will take on a heightened role in the immediate aftermath of corporate crises, practitioners say, as courts continue to tighten interpretations of legal professional privilege claims.

The full bench of the Federal Court last week reaffirmed a November ruling that simply “channelling material through lawyers” does not create privilege, rejecting a claim by Optus that a Deloitte report into its 2022 cyberattack should be kept secret.