by Luke Cass, Michael Clark, and Matthew Hickman
Left to right: Luke Cass, Michael Clark, and Matthew Hickman (photos courtesy of Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP)
Corporate criminal enforcement is a top priority for the Department of Justice.[1] As the number of corporate search warrants rise, so does the government’s use of taint, or filter, teams. A wave of recent caselaw addressing the procedure, role, and handling of taint teams along with potentially privileged material has varied among the circuits, leaving in its wake dramatically unsettled law.
This article discusses what taint teams are, recent circuit splits about them, and how the Supreme Court, the DOJ, and the ABA can, and should, address issues that impact one of the oldest privileges in western jurisprudence.