You and your attorney enjoy an attorney-client privilege. It doesn’t cover every type of communication – for instance, attorneys like psychiatrists have a general duty to report future crimes contemplated by a client – but it provides a pretty thick coat of legal armor.
Confidentiality and Employees
Remember, there is no employer-employee confidentiality privilege. (Nor employee-employer, for what it’s worth.) If you are going through a divorce, or contemplating a divorce, you may think it’s a great time to confide in one of your top employees or even business partners. What you may instead be doing, however, is setting it up so they may later be deposed or be called as a witness at trial. If you were to tell a manager of one of your company’s that you plan to give out larger bonuses this year to keep down profit as part of divorce planning, then don’t be shocked if that information somehow comes out. And it’s not a matter of loyalty, not when that employee is later sworn to an oath and is risking potential perjury.
The above is just one scenario of countless potential scenarios. The employee who asks for a smaller raise this year and then a larger one next year, after their divorce is settled. The law partner who gives up equity to other partners as part of divorce planning with hopes of taking it back after the divorce is in even worse shape. Again, the scenarios are as vast as human imagination, and our desire to not overpay in a divorce.
Such hypothetical situations are a great thing to bandy about with your divorce lawyer. Get a consult, or get someone on retainer. And leave the true sensitive information to yourself and your attorney, not to your employees.
Especially not now, as depositions are becoming a more common play in family litigation. More likely than not the other side will not go on such a fishing expedition, but you can never be too sure. And you also don’t want to open yourself up to any employee litigation on the other side if what you share exposes you to that type of litigation or even blackmail by an employee or former employee.
It is wise to keep one’s on counsel in such situations. Or that of your divorce lawyer. Proceed accordingly.