If one is going through a divorce and speaking to their attorney, then they may or may be aware of something called attorney client privilege. Whether one has hired on the attorney just to just talk to them about things or whether they have more formally hired them on to represent them in a divorce or other legal matter, any kind of communications between them and the attorney are what is called privileged. That means that if in court, can’t be asked about questions related to those communications. For example, if one is in court and the other attorney asked them about communications that they may have had with their attorney, they don’t have to talk about those communications at all.
The same thing applies to communications over email or over the phone or any other format like that. Those are all going to be considered to be attorney client privilege. One of the main reasons behind this law being in place is that a person should feel free to talk about things with their attorney and not worry that those things are going to be revealed. It comes up a lot as to whether something is in fact protected because it was in some form of communication. Now, if it’s not a communication between one and their attorney, then potentially it’s not going to be able to necessarily be protected. If it is strictly within the confines of communication with you and your attorney, then this is going to fall into the privilege.
This means whether one is in the attorney’s office or if talking with the attorney over the phone or even if just meeting initially with an attorney to talk about the case and don’t have any plans to hire that attorney on more than the duration of the initial talk that you have with the attorney, then these communications are protected. Any form of communication. Things like text messages or emails for example. It is important for one to take proper precautions to keep conversations protected and other people from listening in as well. For example, if one is at a bar or something and having a talk on the phone with their attorney, or at a place where other people can hear the conversation, then they can directly testify about what they heard, even saying potentially what they heard one say over the phone. Just because there’s protection, one must make sure that they take all the precautions necessary to make sure court related or West Virginia divorce related communications is kept strictly confidential.
