TITLE LVI
PROBATE COURTS AND DECEDENTS' ESTATES

CHAPTER 556
SUITS BY AND AGAINST ADMINISTRATORS

Section 556:31

    556:31 Confidential Communications. –
I. A communication between an attorney and a client acting as an administrator is privileged and protected from disclosure to the same extent as if the client was acting in his, her, or its individual capacity and was not acting as an administrator.
II. The privilege under paragraph I is not waived by a fiduciary relationship between the administrator and a beneficiary of the decedent's estate or the use of any property comprising the estate to compensate the attorney for legal services rendered to the administrator.
III. If an attorney's client is an administrator, then the attorney's client is only the person acting as administrator. A successor administrator is not the attorney's client solely by reason of succeeding the person with whom the attorney had an attorney-client relationship.
IV. An administrator and a successor administrator may agree to share privileged communications relating to some or all matters involving the estate. The disclosure of privileged communications under the agreement does not waive the disclosing party's privilege. Unless the agreement provides otherwise, privileged communications disclosed under the agreement shall not be disclosed to a third party without the disclosing party's consent or a court order.

Source. 2014, 195:5, eff. July 1, 2014.