Minnesota’s attorney-client privilege is 54 words long, it has lived in the statute books since 1851, and it says nothing whatsoever about crime or fraud. Every word of the crime-fraud exception in this state is judge-made, and almost all of it comes from a single 1991 court of appeals opinion that refused to pierce the privilege. The Minnesota Supreme Court has never once applied the exception to strip a communication of its protection. Its contributions to the subject are a paragraph of acknowledged dictum from 1979, a restatement of that dictum in 1998, and a parenthetical in 2024.
That thin record produces the practical problem this article is about. In federal court, a party who suspects a client used counsel to commit a fraud can ask the judge to read the documents first, on a deliberately low threshold, and then decide. No Minnesota appellate court has adopted that two-step. Here, the showing that gets a judge to look at the communications and the showing that defeats the privilege are the same showing — which means you must be able to prove the fraud without the documents you are trying to reach.
What the statute actually protects
Start with the text, because the text is narrower than the doctrine that grew on top of it. Minn. Stat. § 595.02, subd. 1(b) provides:
An attorney cannot, without the consent of the attorney’s client, be examined as to any communication made by the client to the attorney or the attorney’s advice given thereon in the course of professional duty; nor can any employee of the attorney be examined as to the communication or advice, without the client’s consent.
Read that again and notice what it does not do. It is a rule about who may be examined. As the supreme court put it in a footnote in Kobluk v. University of Minnesota, “[b]y its express terms, the statutory attorney-client privilege pertains only to disclosures by lawyers.” 574 N.W.2d 436, 440 n.4 (Minn. 1998). The client’s own right to refuse to answer comes from the common law, not from the statute: “while the statute (M. S. A. 595.02) prohibits disclosure by the attorney only, the right to refuse to divulge the privileged communication extends as well to the client or his agent as to the attorney.” Brown v. St. Paul City Ry. Co., 241 Minn. 15, 34, 62 N.W.2d 688, 701 (1954).
The statute is a codification, not an invention. In Kahl v. Minnesota Wood Specialty, Inc., the court traced the provision to 1851 and described it as “embodying the common-law privilege, which since the 18th Century has had universal acceptance as indispensable to an attorney’s professional relationship with his client.” 277 N.W.2d 395, 398 (Minn. 1979). The Minnesota Rules of Evidence deliberately leave that body of law alone — Minn. R. Evid. 501 says that “[n]othing in these rules shall be deemed to modify, or supersede existing law relating to the privilege of a witness, person, government, state or political subdivision,” and the 1977 committee comment explains that the legislature had specifically limited the supreme court’s power to promulgate evidence rules touching §§ 595.02 to 595.025.
The elements come from Wigmore, adopted in Brown and repeated in Kobluk: legal advice sought from a professional legal adviser in that capacity, communications relating to that purpose, made in confidence by the client, permanently protected at the client’s instance, unless waived. Kobluk, 574 N.W.2d at 440. Two rules built on that framework matter to every crime-fraud fight:
- The party asserting the privilege proves it. “[T]he party resisting disclosure bears the burden of presenting facts to establish the privilege’s existence.” Kobluk, 574 N.W.2d at 440; accord Sprader v. Mueller, 265 Minn. 111, 117, 121 N.W.2d 176, 180 (1963) (existence of the privilege is a fact question, and the party asserting it must prove it). Nothing about the crime-fraud exception shifts that first burden.
- The privilege is construed strictly. “[A]s a barrier to testimonial disclosure, the privilege tends to suppress relevant facts and must be strictly construed.” Kahl, 277 N.W.2d at 399; Leer v. Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pac. Ry. Co., 308 N.W.2d 305, 309 (Minn. 1981).
That second rule is what the supreme court leaned on when it adopted the predominant purpose test in In re Polaris, Inc.: where a document mixes legal and business advice, the privilege covers the whole document only if legal advice was the predominant purpose, though the portions that are legal advice stay protected either way. No. A20-0427, slip op. at 13–15 (Minn. Dec. 15, 2021). Whether a document is privileged is a fact question, reviewed for clear error. Id. at 15–16. The legal standard itself is a question of law reviewed de novo. Id. at 11.
Where Minnesota’s crime-fraud exception comes from
Not from the legislature. The exception entered Minnesota law sideways, in a paragraph of Kahl that the court itself flagged as unnecessary to the decision. After holding that the workers’ compensation statutes did not abrogate the privilege, the court added:
The issue of whether communications withheld by counsel in this case fall within the scope of the privilege is not presented. However, we observe that the privilege is not permitted to prevent disclosure of communications relating to commission of future crime or fraud.
Kahl, 277 N.W.2d at 399. The court went on to say that the privilege “should not extend to protecting any ‘deliberate plan to defy the law and oust another person of his rights,’” quoting Wigmore. Id.
The ultimate source is Clark v. United States, 289 U.S. 1 (1933), where Justice Cardozo wrote the sentence every crime-fraud brief in the country quotes: “A client who consults an attorney for advice that will serve him in the commission of a fraud will have no help from the law. He must let the truth be told.” 289 U.S. at 15. Clark also fixed the threshold and the intent question in the same paragraph. On threshold: a bare accusation is not enough, because “[i]t is obvious that it would be absurd to say that the privilege could be got rid of merely by making a charge of fraud”; to drive the privilege away “there must be ‘prima facie evidence that it has some foundation in fact.’” Id. On intent: “Nor does the loss of the privilege depend upon the showing of a conspiracy, upon proof that client and attorney are involved in equal guilt. The attorney may be innocent, and still the guilty client must let the truth come out.” Id.
Minnesota’s own caselaw on the exception is short enough to list in full. Levin v. C.O.M.B. Co., 469 N.W.2d 512 (Minn. Ct. App.), review denied (Minn. July 24, 1991), states the test. State ex rel. Humphrey v. Philip Morris Inc., 606 N.W.2d 676 (Minn. Ct. App.), review denied (Minn. Apr. 25, 2000), applies it at industrial scale. Kobluk and Mahoney & Hagberg v. Newgard, 712 N.W.2d 215, 221 (Minn. Ct. App. 2006), aff’d, 729 N.W.2d 302 (Minn. 2007), acknowledge it in passing. And in 2024 the supreme court listed it, without applying it, as one of three ways the State can overcome a presumption of privilege after searching a lawyer’s office. State v. McNeilly, No. A22-0468, slip op. at 52–53 (Minn. May 8, 2024). That is the whole body of binding Minnesota authority on the subject. Nonprecedential court of appeals opinions “are not binding authority except as law of the case, res judicata or collateral estoppel,” though they “may be cited as persuasive authority.” Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).
The elements, stated precisely
Levin supplies the controlling formulation, and the court of appeals restated it nine years later in Philip Morris:
To invoke the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege, the proponent must make a prima facie showing that a communication was “(1) made in furtherance of a crime or fraud and (2) was closely related to the fraud.”
Philip Morris, 606 N.W.2d at 691 (quoting Levin, 469 N.W.2d at 515). “The critical inquiry is whether the attorney-client privilege has become unworthy of protection.” Philip Morris, 606 N.W.2d at 691.
Whose intent controls. The client’s. Levin is explicit that the lawyer’s innocence is irrelevant: “An innocent communication from a lawyer may still fall under the crime-fraud exception if the client is planning a fraud or crime.” 469 N.W.2d at 515 (citing Clark). That cuts both ways, and Levin itself is the demonstration. The lawyer’s letter in that case told the client that documenting an employee’s poor performance “will afford us the opportunity of manufacturing favorable evidence that we can use at the time of trial.” The court of appeals called “manufacture” a poor word choice, read it in context as advice to build a paper trail, and held the trial court could reasonably find no communication made to further a fraud. Id. at 514–15. A bad-sounding sentence from the lawyer does not carry the exception; evidence about what the client was doing does.
Whether the lawyer must know. No. There was “no evidence that outside counsel was present when the company allegedly decided to falsify” the records, and nothing suggesting counsel “even knew of the alleged conspiracy” — and the exception was still available in principle, on the theory that the client was the wrongdoer. Id. at 515.
Whether the crime or fraud must be complete. Here the two lines of Minnesota authority do not say the same thing, and I read the difference as real. The supreme court’s language, both in Kahl and in Kobluk, is about a future crime or fraud — Kobluk says the privilege “may not be used to shield communications regarding a future crime or fraud.” 574 N.W.2d at 440. Levin’s operative test drops the temporal word and asks whether the communication was “made in furtherance of a crime or fraud.” 469 N.W.2d at 515. The two converge in practice, because a communication cannot further something that was already finished when it was made; the client must have been using the lawyer to do the thing, not to clean up after it. Advice sought about a completed act — how bad is my exposure, what do I do now — is the paradigm case of protected consultation, and treating it otherwise would collapse the privilege entirely. If you are arguing this in Minnesota, argue the “in furtherance” framing from Levin and let the supreme court’s “future” language do the confirming work.
The second element does independent work. Practitioners skip it, and Levin is a warning against that. Part II of the opinion holds that even if the plaintiff had established that the letter furthered the alleged fraud, the advice was still inadmissible “because the relationship between the fraud alleged and the communications does not justify piercing the privilege.” Id. at 516. Timing alone was not enough. There was no evidence that the falsification “was prompted by the lawyer’s communication,” that the communication “was understood as suggesting the alleged fraud,” or that any other relationship existed. Id. You must connect the specific communication to the specific wrong.
Standard of review. Abuse of discretion. Id. at 515. That cuts hard in both directions on appeal and is the reason these fights are won or lost in the district court.
What must you show before a judge will look?
This is the question that decides real motions, and Minnesota’s answer is less generous than most lawyers assume.
The showing is a prima facie one, on both elements. Levin tells you what does not qualify: “Mere allegations of wrongdoing are insufficient to warrant application of the exception . . . as are mere coincidences.” 469 N.W.2d at 515. Consider what the moving party in Levin actually had and still lost with. Two affidavits alleging a conspiracy, which the court called conclusory. A suspicious sentence in the company lawyer’s letter. And deposition testimony from the company’s former director of human resources that senior management had decided to falsify the plaintiff’s performance record so he could be fired for cause. That last item is not nothing. It failed anyway, because the same witness testified that the 1986 review was accurate and predated the alleged conspiracy, admitted he had never signed a false report, believed he had himself been wrongfully discharged, and had leaked the privileged letter to the plaintiff’s lawyer. On that record the court of appeals held the trial court could permissibly find no prima facie case of a conspiracy to falsify. Id. at 515–16. The lesson is not that the evidence was disproved. It is that a district court is free to discount it, and abuse-of-discretion review will not disturb the choice.
Now the part nobody tells you. Minnesota has never adopted the federal rule that a lesser showing unlocks in camera review. In United States v. Zolin, the Supreme Court held exactly that:
We therefore conclude that a lesser evidentiary showing is needed to trigger in camera review than is required ultimately to overcome the privilege. . . . The threshold we set, in other words, need not be a stringent one.
491 U.S. 554, 572 (1989). The federal threshold is “a showing of a factual basis adequate to support a good faith belief by a reasonable person” that in camera review “may reveal evidence to establish the claim that the crime-fraud exception applies,” after which the decision to review rests in the district court’s discretion. Id. at 572–73.
Exactly two Minnesota appellate decisions have ever cited Zolin, and neither cites it for that holding. Levin cites it for the general policy of encouraging frank communication. 469 N.W.2d at 516. Philip Morris cites it for the opposite-facing caution — Zolin’s note about “possible due process implications in the routine use of in camera proceedings.” 606 N.W.2d at 693. No Minnesota court has held that a party may obtain in camera inspection of allegedly crime-tainted communications on anything less than the full prima facie showing.
| Federal practice under Zolin | Minnesota | |
|---|---|---|
| To get the judge to read the documents | Factual basis supporting a reasonable person’s good-faith belief that review may reveal evidence | No separate, lower standard has ever been announced |
| To defeat the privilege | Prima facie showing that the exception applies | Prima facie showing on both Levin elements |
| Who decides whether to review | District court’s discretion once the threshold is met | District court’s discretion under Minn. R. Civ. P. 26.03 |
One qualification on that second row, and it runs against the movant. Philip Morris is the only Minnesota record in which the two showings visibly came apart, and the ultimate one was the higher of the two. The district court found a prima facie showing to open the categorical review process, 606 N.W.2d at 682, but its ultimate crime-fraud findings — adopted from the special master, after the documents had been sampled — were made “by a preponderance of the evidence,” while the court of appeals recited Levin’s prima facie formulation as the test on review. Id. at 691. My position is that Levin states the standard, because Levin is what the appellate court applied and what it affirmed under. But plan the motion for the preponderance number. A district judge who has read the communications is deciding whether a fraud actually happened, not whether you have alleged one plausibly, and the record you assemble should be good enough to carry that heavier burden if the judge holds you to it.
In camera review still happens — it is just not a shortcut
Do not read the absence of a Zolin threshold as hostility to in camera inspection. Minnesota courts inspect privileged material constantly. The supreme court has required it: in Erickson v. MacArthur, the district court ordered internal-affairs witness statements produced without reading them, and the supreme court vacated, holding “that the trial court erred in not examining the requested material in camera to properly balance the competing interests at stake,” and adding that “without inspection of the documents themselves, the discovery order is based on mere speculation.” 414 N.W.2d 406, 409 (Minn. 1987). In Polaris, a special master conducted in camera review of the disputed audit report on a clawback motion. Slip op. at 9. And the criminal side runs on the same instinct. Since 1979 a warrant to search the office of a lawyer who is not suspected of wrongdoing has been unreasonable under article I, section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution when there is no threat the documents will be destroyed; the State must proceed by subpoena duces tecum so the lawyer can move to quash. O’Connor v. Johnson, 287 N.W.2d 400, 405 (Minn. 1979). The reason is the one that drives every in camera order in this area: “Once that information is revealed to the police, the privileges are lost, and the information cannot be erased from the minds of the police.” Id. Where the lawyer herself is the suspect, McNeilly built a supervisory-power protocol around the same idea — documents seized from a law office are presumed privileged, the initial burden to show otherwise falls on the State, screening must be done by someone walled off from the prosecution team, and “[t]here is a meaningful opportunity for disputed privilege and work-product determinations to be adjudicated by the court (or another neutral magistrate or special master appointed by the court).” Slip op. at 52–55. One of the three ways the State can carry that burden is by showing “that an exception to the privilege (e.g., crime-fraud) applies” — and it must do so without the prosecution team reading the documents. Id. at 52–53.
Philip Morris is the one Minnesota case where in camera review and the crime-fraud exception actually meet, and the sequence is the point. The district court first found “that respondents had made a prima facie showing that the crime-fraud exception applied,” and only then built the categorical review process under which a special master sampled documents in camera. 606 N.W.2d at 682. The appellants argued that Erickson required document-by-document in camera review of all 230,000 claimed-privileged documents; the court of appeals rejected that on the size of the record and the district court’s findings that privilege had been claimed for “documents which are clearly and inarguably not entitled to protections of privilege.” Id. at 692–93.
In camera review in Minnesota is available, routine, and discretionary — but it is relief a court grants after you have carried the Levin burden, not a device for developing the evidence you need to carry it. Build the record from independent sources. Deposition testimony, transaction documents, timing, the client’s conduct, the third party who was defrauded. If your motion’s only support is the documents you have not seen, you will lose it.
The procedural furniture that makes the motion possible
Two rules do the work. Minn. R. Civ. P. 26.02(f)(1) requires a party withholding material to “make the claim expressly” and “describe the nature of the documents, communications, or things not produced or disclosed in a manner that, without revealing information itself privileged or protected, will enable other parties to assess the applicability of the privilege or protection.” That privilege log is your target list. And Minn. R. Civ. P. 26.03 gives the district court “broad discretion to fashion protective orders and to order discovery only on specified terms and conditions,” which is the authority under which a judge takes documents under seal, appoints a special master, or reviews in chambers. Erickson, 414 N.W.2d at 409.
If the ruling goes against a privilege holder, the vehicle for immediate review is a writ of prohibition. The supreme court confirmed in Polaris that interlocutory review is appropriate because an ordinary appeal is not an adequate remedy: it “would be too late on appeal from the final judgment . . . after the report is out in the open and used in litigation.” Slip op. at 10. Preserve the claim by filing the material under seal, as the parties did there.
The judge decides this, not the party holding the file. “When facts are presented upon which the claimed privilege rests, it then becomes necessary for the court to determine whether the privilege exists much the same as in the determination of other fact issues.” Brown, 241 Minn. at 35, 62 N.W.2d at 701, quoted in Polaris, slip op. at 16. Privilege is a fact question, and fact questions get decided on evidence, not on the assertion of the party holding the file. Kahl said the same thing about parties who assert the privilege: they “should not determine the extent of privilege, even though they have the right to assert it.” 277 N.W.2d at 399.
Waiver, and the rule most Minnesota lawyers have not read
Waiver kills more privilege claims than the crime-fraud exception ever will, and Minnesota put its rules on it in writing in 2019.
Disclosure to a third party. The classic rule still applies. Where attorney and client “have chosen a public place in which to discuss matters pertaining to their professional relationship, and a third person overhears their conversation without resorting to surreptitious methods, they are deemed to have waived the privilege.” Schwartz v. Wenger, 267 Minn. 40, 43, 124 N.W.2d 489, 492 (1963). Surreptitious eavesdropping is different, and so is a rogue custodian: in Levin, a former human-resources director who anonymously mailed a privileged letter to the opposing lawyer waived nothing, because a displaced former employee has no authority over a corporation’s privilege. 469 N.W.2d at 516 n.4.
Waiver by the lawyer. An attorney can waive it for the client without asking. In Sprader v. Mueller the supreme court held that “an attorney has the right to use privileged matter for legitimate bargaining purposes” and “may waive the privilege without committing any breach of his ethical obligation to respect his client’s confidences,” under the implied authority that comes with managing the case. 265 Minn. at 117, 121 N.W.2d at 180.
Scope of waiver and inadvertent production. Minnesota adopted Minn. R. Evid. 502, effective January 1, 2019, modeled on the federal rule. The committee comment says the rule “is not meant to alter Minnesota law, but to clarify it” — before 2019 there was no Minnesota rule stating these standards at all. It is short and it is decisive. Subject-matter waiver in a state proceeding reaches undisclosed communications only if three things are true together: “(1) the waiver is intentional; (2) the disclosed and undisclosed communications or information concern the same subject matter; and (3) they ought in fairness to be considered together.” Minn. R. Evid. 502(a). And an inadvertent disclosure “does not operate as a waiver if: (1) the disclosure is inadvertent; (2) the holder of the privilege or protection took reasonable steps to prevent disclosure; and (3) the holder promptly took reasonable steps to rectify the error, including (if applicable) following Minnesota Rule of Civil Procedure 26.02(f)(2).” Minn. R. Evid. 502(b). A court order under Rule 502(c) makes non-waiver binding in every other state proceeding; a party agreement under Rule 502(d) binds only the parties unless it is entered as an order. Get it entered as an order.
Clawback mechanics. Minn. R. Civ. P. 26.02(f)(2) supplies the procedure: the claiming party notifies the recipient, who “must promptly return, sequester, or destroy the specified information and any copies it has and may not use or disclose the information until the claim is resolved,” and who “may promptly present the information to the court under seal for a determination of the claim.” That is exactly the sequence Polaris followed — notice, then a sealed submission, then in camera review by the special master, then a district court ruling, then a writ petition. Slip op. at 8–10.
Work product is a different thing, protected on different terms
Keep these two doctrines apart, because they are not the same protection and the standards do not match. Work product is not privilege at all. “While the term ‘privilege’ is sometimes applied to the work-product doctrine, documents within the ambit of this doctrine are not actually ‘privileged,’ but instead are generally ‘immune’ from discovery.” Philip Morris, 606 N.W.2d at 689–90 (citing Brown, 241 Minn. at 35, 62 N.W.2d at 701).
Minn. R. Civ. P. 26.02(d) sets the terms, and the federal vocabulary of ordinary and opinion work product does not fit Minnesota. Documents and tangible things prepared in anticipation of litigation or for trial by or for a party or its representative are discoverable “only upon a showing that the party seeking discovery has substantial need of the materials in the preparation of the party’s case and that the party is unable without undue hardship to obtain the substantial equivalent of the materials by other means,” and even when that showing is made, “the court shall protect against disclosure of the mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, or legal theories of an attorney or other representative of a party concerning the litigation.” But the supreme court reserves the term itself for that inner category: “materials prepared in anticipation of litigation that do not contain opinions, conclusions, legal theories, or mental impressions of counsel are not work product and are discoverable . . . .” Dennie v. Metropolitan Medical Center, 387 N.W.2d 401, 406 (Minn. 1986). Everything outside it is trial preparation material, discoverable on the showing above. I work through that structure and what it changes in work product in Minnesota.
Whether the crime-fraud exception reaches work product is a separate question, and Minnesota’s answer to it is thinner than its answer for the privilege. Philip Morris treated categories of documents as “tainted by crime-fraud” for purposes of both the privilege and the work-product doctrine, but it got there by citing federal authority rather than by articulating a Minnesota standard, and it did not separately address material that does carry counsel’s mental impressions. 606 N.W.2d at 696. If you are moving to reach an opponent’s trial-preparation materials on a crime-fraud theory in Minnesota state court, treat the two showings as distinct and brief them separately. Assume you will have to satisfy Rule 26.02(d) on its own terms as well.
When you suspect your own file is being used
The doctrine described above is what a court applies to someone else’s file. The rules that govern what a Minnesota lawyer may do about a suspicion in her own file are separate, and they are written down.
Minn. R. Prof. Conduct 1.2(d) draws the line on the front end: “A lawyer shall not counsel a client to engage, or assist a client, in conduct that the lawyer knows is criminal or fraudulent, but a lawyer may discuss the legal consequences of any proposed course of conduct with a client and may counsel or assist a client to make a good faith effort to determine the validity, scope, meaning, or application of the law.” Withdrawal is mandatory under Rule 1.16(a)(1) if the representation “will result in violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct or other law,” and permissive under Rule 1.16(b)(2) and (b)(3) when the client “persists in a course of action involving the lawyer’s services that the lawyer reasonably believes is criminal or fraudulent” or “has used the lawyer’s services to perpetrate a crime or fraud.”
Confidentiality is not the same as privilege, and the comment to the confidentiality rule says so directly: “The principle of client-lawyer confidentiality is given effect by related bodies of law; the attorney-client privilege, the work-product doctrine and the rule of confidentiality established in professional ethics.” Minn. R. Prof. Conduct 1.6 cmt. 3. Rule 1.6(a) forbids knowingly revealing information relating to the representation except as paragraph (b) permits, and paragraph (b) then lists eleven separate permissions. It permits disclosure the lawyer reasonably believes necessary to prevent a fraud “reasonably certain to result in substantial injury to the financial interests or property of another and in furtherance of which the client has used or is using the lawyer’s services,” Rule 1.6(b)(4); to “rectify the consequences of a client’s criminal or fraudulent act in the furtherance of which the lawyer’s services were used,” Rule 1.6(b)(5); to secure legal advice about the lawyer’s own compliance with the rules, Rule 1.6(b)(7); to defend the lawyer in a proceeding “based upon conduct in which the client was involved,” Rule 1.6(b)(8); and to comply with other law or a court order, Rule 1.6(b)(9). In an adjudicative proceeding, Rule 3.3(b) requires reasonable remedial measures, “including, if necessary, disclosure to the tribunal,” when the lawyer knows a person “intends to engage, is engaging or has engaged in criminal or fraudulent conduct related to the proceeding” — and Rule 3.3(c) says those duties “apply even if compliance requires disclosure of information otherwise protected by Rule 1.6.”
What I do with all of that is unglamorous and mostly procedural. I document what I was told and when, in a file the client’s adversary will never reach through a fishing expedition. I do not act on a hunch; the rules are keyed to what a lawyer knows and to what she reasonably believes, and those are different from what she suspects on a Tuesday. If a subpoena or a motion arrives, I assert every nonfrivolous claim of privilege on the client’s behalf — the comment to Rule 1.6 tells lawyers to do precisely that, and to consult the client about appeal after an adverse ruling. Minn. R. Prof. Conduct 1.6 cmt. 11. I log the withheld material under Rule 26.02(f)(1) rather than blanket-asserting privilege, because Philip Morris is a monument to what happens when a party claims protection for “documents which are clearly and inarguably not entitled to protections of privilege.” And I do not turn a file over to anyone on my own authority. That determination belongs to a judge.
When it is my client who has been defrauded and the paper trail runs through the other side’s lawyer, the analysis flips to everything above: build the fraud claim and, where the facts support it, the aiding-and-abetting theory out of independent evidence first, then move on the privilege. If documents have gone missing while all this was happening, the spoliation and discovery-sanctions route is usually faster and surer than a crime-fraud motion. And if the fight is over the sufficiency of the allegations themselves, remember that Rule 11 and § 549.211 impose their own pre-filing obligations on the accusation you are about to make.
Madgett Law, LLC
I litigate privilege fights in Minnesota state and federal court — motions to compel and to quash, privilege-log disputes, clawback motions under Rule 26.02(f)(2) and Minn. R. Evid. 502, crime-fraud motions, and petitions for a writ of prohibition when a district court orders production of material that should never leave the file. I also advise lawyers and firms responding to subpoenas for client files and to searches touching their own offices. If you are on either side of a dispute about whether a communication is protected, call 612-470-6529 or send us a message.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 595.02, subd. 1(b) (2025) (text of the attorney-client privilege; examination of the attorney and the attorney’s employees), verified at revisor.mn.gov. Minn. R. Evid. 501 (rules do not modify existing privilege law) and committee comment (1977); Minn. R. Evid. 502(a)–(e) (scope of waiver; inadvertent disclosure; court order; party agreement; definitions) and committee comment (2018), both verified by direct retrieval of revisor.mn.gov/court_rules/ev/id/501/ and /502/. Minn. R. Civ. P. 26.02(d) (trial-preparation materials; substantial need and undue hardship; protection of mental impressions), 26.02(f)(1) (privilege log), 26.02(f)(2) (clawback procedure), and 26.03 (protective orders), verified at revisor.mn.gov/court_rules/cp/id/26/. Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c) (nonprecedential opinions not binding authority but citable as persuasive), verified at revisor.mn.gov/court_rules/ap/subtype/rcap/id/136/. Minn. R. Prof. Conduct 1.2(d); 1.6(a), (b)(4), (b)(5), (b)(7), (b)(8), (b)(9) and cmts. 3, 11; 1.16(a)(1), (b)(2), (b)(3); 3.3(b), (c), each verified at revisor.mn.gov/court_rules/pr/subtype/cond/id/
This article is general legal information about Minnesota law. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no outcome is promised or implied. Your situation turns on its own facts; consult a lawyer about them.