You are a paralegal working for a law firm who is representing a client in a civil lawsuit. Your firm has sent to the other party a request for production of documents. The other law firm in response to this request for production of documents sends your firm a binder containing the documents. You are the first person in your law firm to review this binder. In the binder you start to read a memo that is included. Halfway through reading this memo, you realize that this was a memo written by a paralegal in the other law firm to one of the lawyers in that firm discussing their strategy relative to one of the issues in the lawsuit. At some point you go to your supervising attorney and explain to the attorney what you have found in the binder from the other law firm. The supervising attorney asks you to research what the law firm should do with this memo that was in the binder.

Write a short memo to your supervising attorney discussing these issues: 1. What should you as a paralegal do when you discover a document which is probably privileged that has apparently been produced inadvertently? What should you not do? What should you have done when you realized that the memo you were reading was written by the opposing paralegal? 2. What should your law firm do with the memo? What are the ethical considerations that must be considered in making the decision? 3. If the court has to decide what to do about the document, what factors will the judge look at in making the decision? I would suggest that you start your research with the case, McMahon vs. Universal Golf Construction Corp., 2005 WL 2542928 (Mass.Super. 2005). In that case, you will also find reference to: MBA Commission on Professional Ethics, Op. 4 (1999). ABA Comm. on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Formal Op. 382 (1994). Amgen v. Hoechst Marion Roussel, Inc., 190 F.R.D. 287 (D.Mass. 2000). Feel free to use any other research that you find that would help you answer the above questions. Please provide citation to any research in your memo. The citation to the McMahon case is to Westlaw. If you do not have access to Westlaw, you can find the case in the tab for research memo info. You should also be able to find the ethics opinions and the Amgen case by searching for them on Google. If you have a problem finding them, let me know.