Solicitor-Client Privilege

Policies and Practices of Canadian Archives

Authors

  • Jean Dryden

Abstract

The present exploratory study set out to test the hypothesis that lawyers’ papers subject to solicitor-client privilege (SCP) are available for research in Canadian archives with no apparent harm to those involved, despite the legal principle that SCP never ends. Using data from the national database of archival descriptions plus an online survey, this article reports on archivists’ awareness of SCP and Canadian archival practices regarding the acquisition of, and access to, lawyers’ papers. Although the study is subject to several limitations, the initial findings confirm the hypothesis and offer possibilities for future research.

Author Biography

Jean Dryden

Jean Dryden is an archival consultant, independent scholar, and adjunct professor in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. She has many years of experience as a staff archivist and archival administrator at the National Archives of Canada, the Provincial Archives of Alberta, and as Chief Archivist of the United Church of Canada/Victoria University Archives. Her research interests focus on barriers to access to archival records, particularly those posed by copyright. Her interest in solicitor-client privilege arose while she was organizing the records of an organization involved in a series of landmark legal cases. The risk that the records would be stripped of privileged materials led to an investigation of the rationale for perpetual privilege and exploratory research into the practices of Canadian archivists vis-à-vis the acquisition of, and access to, lawyers’ papers.

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Published

2026-06-18

How to Cite

Dryden, Jean. 2026. “Solicitor-Client Privilege: Policies and Practices of Canadian Archives”. Archivaria 101 (June):120-54. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/14091.

Issue

Archivaria 101 (Spring 2026)

Section

Articles

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