Research and Scholarship

Legal Professional Privilege in a Digital World: A Comparative Analysis

Posted
July 23, 2025

In her article, “Legal Professional Privilege in a Digital World: A Comparative Analysis,” published in Volume 15 of the British Journal of American Legal Studies(Spring 2025), Pace Haub Law Professor Lissa Griffin and co-author Dan Jasinski explore the evolving challenges to legal professional privilege in an increasingly digitized criminal justice system.

Focusing on the United States and England & Wales, the article analyzes how the routine use of technology—email, cloud storage, mobile devices—introduces new vulnerabilities in client-lawyer confidentiality. The authors examine the risks of interception, device searches, and the erosion of traditional protections, arguing for heightened awareness among practitioners and a rethinking of judicial and legislative approaches to digital-era privilege

“Increased digitalisation of a lawyer's routine tasks poses increased risks to their client's interests,” they write, calling on courts and lawmakers to preserve the core principles of adversarial justice by protecting this foundational ethical duty.

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