Towards a Parent-Inclusive Attorney-Client Privilege

Few state or federal courts recognize a parent-childtestimonial or communication privilege. Yet, courtsrecognize privileges between spouses, clergy-penitent,and therapist-patient. Supported by the Wigmore testthat legitimized these privileges, this paper argues thatthe attorney-client privilege should still exist even if (1)a client’s parent is included in an attorney-clientmeeting in an advisory capacity; (2) the child disclosescontents of the attorney-client communications to thechild’s parent; or (3) the child discusses the contents ofthe attorney-client communications with the child’sparent.