Privilege
Author | Janet Walker/Lorne Sossin |
Profession | Osgoode Hall Law School, York University/Faculty of Law, University of Toronto |
Pages | 193-204 |
193
CHAPTER 8
PR I VI LEGE
A. InTRoduCTIon
The preceding chapter discussed the trend to require ever greater pre-
trial disclosure as a way of preventing surprise at trial. This chapter
discusses the circumstances in which important societal and proced-
ural interests override this fundamental concern. Under these circum-
stances, information and materials that are relevant to the issues at
hand and that could affect the outcome of the case are considered “priv-
ileged” and, therefore, exempt from the obligation to disclose them.
Some forms of privilege affect the obligation to make pre-trial dis-
closure. These include the privilege that protects communications be-
tween a solicitor and his or her client — solicitor-client privilege — and
the privilege that protects communications made in preparation for liti-
gation — litigation privilege. Solicitor-client privilege and litigation priv-
ilege will be discussed in the next two sections of this chapter. Other
forms of privilege affect the evidence that can be admitted at trial. One
such privilege — that protecting settlement negotiations from disclo-
sure at trial — will also be discussed in this chapter.
Although there are many different forms of privilege, each having
its own scope and operative rules, they may all be understood in terms
of the underlying rationale: the relationship or activity in which the
communication was made, and which might suffer if the communica-
tion is not protected from disclosure, is a relationship or activity that
society regards as sufficiently important to override the interests in
Get this document and AI-powered insights with a free trial of vLex and Vincent AI
Get Started for FreeUnlock full access with a free 7-day trial
Transform your legal research with vLex
-
Complete access to the largest collection of common law case law on one platform
-
Generate AI case summaries that instantly highlight key legal issues
-
Advanced search capabilities with precise filtering and sorting options
-
Comprehensive legal content with documents across 100+ jurisdictions
-
Trusted by 2 million professionals including top global firms
-
Access AI-Powered Research with Vincent AI: Natural language queries with verified citations

Unlock full access with a free 7-day trial
Transform your legal research with vLex
-
Complete access to the largest collection of common law case law on one platform
-
Generate AI case summaries that instantly highlight key legal issues
-
Advanced search capabilities with precise filtering and sorting options
-
Comprehensive legal content with documents across 100+ jurisdictions
-
Trusted by 2 million professionals including top global firms
-
Access AI-Powered Research with Vincent AI: Natural language queries with verified citations

Unlock full access with a free 7-day trial
Transform your legal research with vLex
-
Complete access to the largest collection of common law case law on one platform
-
Generate AI case summaries that instantly highlight key legal issues
-
Advanced search capabilities with precise filtering and sorting options
-
Comprehensive legal content with documents across 100+ jurisdictions
-
Trusted by 2 million professionals including top global firms
-
Access AI-Powered Research with Vincent AI: Natural language queries with verified citations

Unlock full access with a free 7-day trial
Transform your legal research with vLex
-
Complete access to the largest collection of common law case law on one platform
-
Generate AI case summaries that instantly highlight key legal issues
-
Advanced search capabilities with precise filtering and sorting options
-
Comprehensive legal content with documents across 100+ jurisdictions
-
Trusted by 2 million professionals including top global firms
-
Access AI-Powered Research with Vincent AI: Natural language queries with verified citations

Unlock full access with a free 7-day trial
Transform your legal research with vLex
-
Complete access to the largest collection of common law case law on one platform
-
Generate AI case summaries that instantly highlight key legal issues
-
Advanced search capabilities with precise filtering and sorting options
-
Comprehensive legal content with documents across 100+ jurisdictions
-
Trusted by 2 million professionals including top global firms
-
Access AI-Powered Research with Vincent AI: Natural language queries with verified citations
