It is a battle, not the war

No doubt that you all received e-mails from ACC including the personal note from Fred Krebs announcing the victory in changing DOJ policy on the attorney-client privilege. I want to extend my congratulations, particularly to Susan Hackett who has led the ACC effort.

However, in our enthusiasm, let us not forget that this was a joint effort among many organizations, including the National Chamber of Commerce, WLF and others and we need to jointly reaffirm our coalition because the job is not over. Winston S. Churchill said following the victory at El Alameinin in North Africa in WWII: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

In a series of blogs I described the systematic erosion of federal business civil liberties detailed by a paper recently published by the Washington Legal Foundation. Steve Bokat detailed the extensive participation of many organizations that have worked alongside ACC and WLF to confront these issues as a community. The present victory corrects an important part, but just a part of the overall problem. The judicial expansion of the crime fraud exception, for example, has many of the same detrimental impacts on the attorney-client privilege.

Of course we need to recognize the present achievement, but we also need to reaffirm our cooperation with coalition of which ACC is a part and use this opportunity to renew our commitment to win the war.


-Larry Salibra
View Bio