United States v. Stepney

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• noting harm to joint defense group presented by one attorney’s disqualification
• “Courts have consistently viewed the obligations created by joint defense agreements as distinct from those created by actual attorney-client relationships.”
• “[Per a joint defense agreement,] no conflict of interest arises unless the attorney actually obtained relevant confidential information.”
• “Courts have consistently viewed the obligations created by joint defense agreements as distinct from those created by actual attorney-client relationships”
• “Joint defense agreements are not contracts which create whatever rights the signatories chose, but are written notice of defendants’ invocation of privileges set forth in common law.” (emphasis added)
• “To the extent that joint defense agreements simply set forth the existence of attorney-client relationships—implied or otherwise—between various attorneys and defendants, the contents of such agreements do not fall within the attorney-client privilege.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).