Joint-Defense Privilege Law and Legal Definition
Joint-defense privilege is a rule by which defendant can assert the attorney–client privilege to protect a confidential communication made to a codefendant's lawyer if the communication was related to the defense of both defendants. The privilege was developed initially for communications between co-defendants in criminal cases. However, the courts have now expanded the reach of the privilege to a wide variety of situations involving multiple parties with a common defense or claim.
There is no specific provision for a joint defense privilege in the Federal Rules of Evidence. This is also referred to as the common-interest doctrine.
