Rule 4.4 Respect for Rights of Third Persons

COMMENTS:

[1]Responsibility to a client requires a lawyer to subordinate the interests of others to those of the client, but that responsibility does not imply that a lawyer may disregard the rights of third persons. It is impractical to catalogue all such rights, but they include legal restrictions on methods of obtaining evidence from third persons and unwarranted intrusions into privileged relationships, such as the client-lawyer relationship.

[2]Paragraph (b) recognizes that lawyers sometimes receive documents that were mistakenly sent or produced by opposing parties or their lawyers. If a lawyer knows or reasonably should know that such a document was sent inadvertently, then this Rule requires the lawyer to promptly notify the sender and then either reach agreement with the sending attorney as to the disposition of the document or seek a ruling from the court as to whether the attorney-client privilege or work product protection was waived by the disclosure. This Rule incorporates Formal Opinion No. 39, issued by Hawaii’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel on April 26, 2001, as well as provisions suggested in “The Future of Inadvertent Disclosure: The Lingering Need to Revise Professional Conduct Rules,” P. Schaefer, Vol. 69 Maryland Law Review 195, 258-259 (2010). For purposes of this Rule, “document” includes e-mail or other electronic modes of transmission subject to being read out or put into readable form.