COURSE DESCRIPTION
Navigate the complex ethical landscape surrounding electronic communications where convenience meets professional responsibility in ways that can create unexpected liability exposure. This essential program addresses the intersection of legal ethics and email communication, from confidentiality protection to professional conduct standards. Master the evolving requirements for ethical email use while leveraging technology's benefits for enhanced client service.
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Understand confidentiality and privilege protection requirements for email communications with clients
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Address metadata and inadvertent disclosure issues affecting professional responsibility and client protection
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Navigate professional conduct standards affecting email tone, timing, and recipient considerations
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Implement security measures and encryption requirements that satisfy ethical obligations for client protection
Speaker:
Thomas E. Spahn is a partner in the McLean, Virginia office of McGuireWoods, LLP, where he has a substantial practice advising clients on properly creating and preserving the attorney-client privilege and work product protections. For more than 30 years he has lectured extensively on legal ethics and professionalism and has written “The Attorney-Client Privilege and the Work Product Doctrine: A Practitioner’s Guide,” a 750 page treatise published by the Virginia Law Foundation. Mr. Spahn has served as a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and as a member of the Virginia State Bar's Legal Ethics Committee. He received his B.A., magna cum laude, from Yale University and his J.D. from Yale Law School.