I am duly authorized under the laws of the State of Nebraska to administer oaths.

Daniel B. Levin Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP 350 S. Grand Avenue, 50th Floor Los Angeles, CA 90071-3426

Attorneys for Amicus Curiae Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America

Attorneys for Amicus Curiae Washington Legal Foundation Attorneys for Amicus Curiae California Lawyers Association John S. Williams Lisa Schiavo Blatt Williams & Connolly, LLP 680 Maine Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20024

jmasslon@wlf.org *1 copy Adria S. Price Price & Assoc., LLC 43 North Kringle Place Post Office Box 100 Santa Claus, IN 47579

In THE Supreme Court of the United States

On Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

As required by Supreme Court Rule 33.1(h), I certify that the document contains 7,303 words, excluding the parts of the document that are exempted by Supreme Court Rule 33.1(d).

I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.

Alan James Wilson-Epes Printing Co., Inc.

As required by Supreme Court Rule 33.1(h), I certify that the AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF

in the above entitled case complies with the typeface requirement of Supreme Court Rule 33.1(b), being prepared in New Century Schoolbook 12 point for the text and 10 point for the footnotes, and this brief contains 2198 words, excluding the parts that are exempted by Supreme Court Rule 33.1(d), as needed.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 23rd day of November, 2022.

I am duly authorized under the laws of the State of Nebraska to administer oaths.

counseling, (2) ensure effective advocacy for the client, (3) ensure access to justice and (4) promote the proper and efficient functioning of the American adversary system of justice.”4 To further these goals, the ABA has consistently expressed opposition to “policies, practices and procedures * * * that have the effect of eroding the attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine and favors policies, practices and procedures that recognize the value of those protections.”5 The ABA has repeatedly adopted policies supporting the attorney-client privilege in specific business law contexts, including “in connection with audits of company financial statements,”6 “between in-house counsel and their clients,”7 and between American lawyers and their clients in the European Union.8 The ABA’s interest in protecting the attorney-client privilege, however, is not limited to business law, but extends to all areas of practice, including criminal, immigration, family law, and other essential legal services.

Moreover, client discussions are often interwoven with a variety of communications, without regard to precise purpose-minding, in ways that make separating and evaluating the purpose of every aspect almost impossibly complex and uncertain—particularly for a reviewing court charged with the task in most cases years after the fact.

The process of obtaining legal advice is a dynamic and often “messy” one, with the client communicating all sorts of information (relevant or not) and goals, and the lawyer asking follow-up questions to refine the application of the law to the facts of the client’s specific circumstances.

In addition to the deleterious effect on lawyers’ ability to ensure compliance with the law, this could also affect the client’s bottom line because not receiving timely advice to mitigate or remediate prior conduct often proves expensive in the long run.

Moreover, as Judge Roth observed almost two decades ago, “courts must be particularly careful not to craft rules that cause application of the privilege to turn on the answers to extremely difficult substantive legal questions.” Wachtel v. Health Net, Inc., 482 F.3d 225, 237 (3d Cir. 2004).