Solicitor-Client Privilege

Practical Law Canada Glossary 7-578-5186 (Approx. 2 pages)

Glossary

Solicitor-Client Privilege

A communication (including a document) between a lawyer and a client for purposes of seeking or providing legal advice, which is intended to be kept confidential. Solicitor-client privilege belongs to the client and can only be waived by the client (or with the client's informed consent). However, solicitor-client privilege is lost if:

The client voluntarily discloses the information to a third party, which does not include disclosure by a company of confidential documents to its auditor (see Philip Services Corp. (Receiver of) v. Ontario (Securities Commission), 2005 CarswellOnt 3934 (Ont. Div. Ct.)) or disclosure to a person having a joint interest with the client in the litigation (see Pritchard v. Ontario (Human Rights Commission), 2004 CarswellOnt 1885 (S.C.C.)).
The communications with the lawyer relate to advice in order to commit a crime.
Public safety overrides solicitor-client privilege so that the lawyer believes on reasonable grounds that there is an imminent risk to an identifiable person or group of death or serious bodily harm (see Smith v. Jones, 1999 CarswellBC 590 (S.C.C.)).
Disclosure is necessary in order to prevent a wrongful conviction (see R. v. McClure, 2001 CarswellOnt 496 (S.C.C.) and R. v. Brown, 2002 CarswellOnt 916 (S.C.C.)).

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Resource ID 7-578-5186

Maintained

Resource Type Glossary

Jurisdiction

Canada (Common Law)