Book review: Privilege

Author: Colin Passmore

Publisher: Sweet & Maxwell

ISBN: 9780414057531

Price: £235.00

It is hard to think of an area of almost entirely judge-made law which is more important than legal professional privilege. If a client’s access to lawyers were to be inhibited by the fear that their confidences might later be used against them, legal rights would be obscured and advice would be based on partial truths. Privilege forms part of the very foundation of our legal system and this book is part of that underpinning concrete.

The work shows its author to be an enthusiastic defender of privilege, alert to risks of encroachments from the state and labouring to keep pace with the unremitting development of judicial thinking.

The book covers all of the conventional sub-topics of privilege comprehensively in just under 1,200 closely printed pages. It explains in detail the core principles of legal advice privilege and litigation privilege;