Privilege is a right of the client rather than an obligation or right of the lawyer. As a result, the privilege applies equally to copies held by the client and those held by the lawyer.

The Evidence Act was amended in February 2012 to extend legal advice privilege to communications with in-house lawyers in their legal capacity. Specifically, legal advice privilege now extends to communications and advice between an entity and its "legal counsel" made or given in the course of and for the purpose of their employment as legal counsel. Legal counsel is broadly defined as a person (by whatever name called) who is an employee of an entity employed to undertake the provision of legal advice or assistance in connection with the application of the law or any form of resolution of legal disputes. It should be noted that only communications with in-house counsel made for the purpose of seeking their legal advice are privileged. This is an important distinction where the in-house counsel is entrusted with multiple roles in the entity in addition to being a legal adviser.

As regards confidential communications with in-house legal counsel before the amendments to the Evidence Act in February 2012, the Singapore Court of Appeal has held that such communications would be protected by the common law rule protecting such communications. Such privilege at common law would apply where the following three requirements are satisfied:

• The advice must have been rendered by a legal professional
• The legal professional must have been acting in their capacity as legal adviser when they provided the advice
• The communications must have been made in confidence

In respect of litigation privilege, the relevant statutory provision and case law developments appear to extend litigation privilege to cover communications or advice rendered by an in-house lawyer to the company (i.e., the client). The requirements described above in relation to the applicability of litigation privilege (that there must be a reasonable prospect of litigation and the communications must be for the dominant purpose of litigation) would therefore apply likewise to an in-house lawyer.

Confidential internal communications between two or more in-house lawyers are protected by legal advice privilege provided that the communication is made for the purpose of providing legal advice to that client or clients.

The Legal Profession Act extends the solicitor-client privilege contained in the Evidence Act to professional communications between a client and a law corporation or limited liability law partnership. The sections further provide that the privilege shall apply to all the partners, officers and employees of such law corporation or limited liability law partnership. Since foreign lawyers may register to practice Singapore law in a Singapore law practice, their communications will be accorded privilege as employees of the law corporation or limited liability law partnership (subject to any conditions that may be prescribed by the attorney-general under the registration of the foreign lawyer).

In respect of a joint-law venture between a foreign law practice and a Singapore law practice, or a formal law alliance between one or more foreign law practices and one or more Singapore law practices, solicitor-client privilege over communications between the joint law venture or formal law alliance and their clients exists by virtue of the Legal Profession Act. However, the Legal Profession Act is silent on whether employees of the joint-law venture or formal law alliance are accorded privilege in their communications.

In respect of a "foreign law practice", which is defined as a law practice — except a Singapore law practice — providing legal services in any foreign law in Singapore or elsewhere, there is no provision of law or regulation that expressly confers attorney-client privilege on such a firm.

Strictly, legal advice privilege does not extend to nonlegal professionals who, from time to time, may advise on legal issues relating to their field.

However, the Singapore Court of Appeal had, upon consideration of an Australian authority, suggested that legal advice privilege can attach to communications from third parties depending on the nature of the function the third party performed and the purpose and content of the communications (i.e., instead of considering simply the third party's legal relationship with the party that engaged it). In particular, if that function was to enable the client to make the communication necessary to obtain legal advice it required, and the communication is so intertwined with the communication made by the client to its legal adviser, the communication with the third party (and work product) may be brought within legal advice privilege. In other words, legal advice privilege may potentially be applied to communications from third parties obtained with the dominant purpose of obtaining legal advice.

As a matter of prudence, in any event, it would be advisable to have the legal adviser manage such communications with the third party as part of its legal advice.