Lynch v. Hamrick
Supreme Court of Alabama
968 So. 2d 11 (2007)
Hamrick (defendant) brought her mother Lynch (plaintiff/intervenor) to attorney Wills to revise Lynch's will and convey Hamrick a 40-acre tract, remaining present for the initial joint meeting and supplying documents about Lynch's existing estate plan, though Wills later spoke privately with Lynch alone before finalizing the documents. After another son sued to set aside the resulting deed, Lynch moved to quash Hamrick's planned deposition of Wills based on attorney-client privilege, but the trial court allowed Wills's testimony, ultimately declining to set aside the deed; Lynch appealed the admission of that testimony.
Whether the presence of a third party at a meeting between an attorney and client destroys the attorney-client privilege if the third party does not have a sufficient common legal interest in the subject matter of the meeting.