| Description |
This article will explore each of the foregoing reactions, and consider their relationship to each other. It will review the details of the Department of Insurance action, the important distinction between the attorney-client privilege and the duty of confidentiality, the [*24] structure of the whistleblower statutes, the California law of attorney conduct that imposes the duty of confidentiality, the unique situation of the government attorney, and the troublesome question of the identity of the client of a government attorney.
The key question to be resolved is whether the whistleblower statutes override the government attorney's duty of confidentiality. Implicated in that issue is the troublesome question of the identity of the client of the government attorney. Is it the agency in which he works, the branch of government, or that popular abstraction, the people? Expressed as a functional issue, who or what is entitled to the benefit of the government attorney's duty of confidentiality? (Description from Source) |