The attorney-client privilege has fittingly been referred to as “the most revered of our common-law privileges,” as the court held in Levy v. Senate of Pennsylvania, 65 A.3d 361, 368 (Pa. 2013). Federal and state courts alike recognize that the privilege is “rooted in the imperative need for confidence and trust” in the attorney-client relationship, and that it is, in fact, “inextricably linked to the very integrity and accuracy of the fact-finding process,” as the court held in Jaffee v. Redmond, 518 U.S. 1, 10 (1996).
The attorney work-product doctrine is equally venerable. That privilege, codified in Pennsylvania at Rule 4003.3 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, provides that “discovery shall not include disclosure of the mental impressions of a party’s attorney or his or her conclusions, opinions, memoranda, notes or summaries, legal research or legal theories.” Opinion work product is protected in order to provide a “privileged area” within which a lawyer “can analyze and prepare his client’s case,” as the court held in Lepley v. Lycoming County Court of Common Pleas, 393 A.2d 306, 310 (Pa. 1978).
