1. ARE COUNSEL’S DOODLES PRIVILEGED?
Do you doodle in meetings? Should you doodle in meetings?
There is both good news and bad.
The good news is that doodling may be good for you! A study done by the University of Plymouth
and published in Applied Cognitive Psychology suggests that doodling actually helps improve
concentration and memory. Two groups of people were asked to listen to a boring telephone
conversation. One group was doodling, the other was not. The doodlers remembered 29 per cent more
information than those who had simply sat and listened.
The bad news at least so far as counsel is concerned is that any doodles may now have a wider
audience than the doodler may have intended. In Hellard and another v Irwin Mitchell [2012] All ER
(D) 71; [2012] EWHC 2656 (Ch) His Honour Judge Purle Q.C. sitting as a judge of the Chancery
Division heard an application in a claim for alleged professional negligence against the defendant firm
of solicitors.
The essential issue was limitation and, in particular, whether it was reasonable for the solicitors to rely
on the advice of counsel and what counsel's advice had been. The solicitors applied for a declaration
that the claimant trustee in bankruptcy had impliedly waived the obligations of the bankrupt’s former
counsel to uphold legal professional privilege in respect of the subject matter of the claim.
It was common ground that the bringing of the claim had operated as a waiver of privilege with regard
to the solicitors’ file including the solicitors’ notes of conferences with counsel and the deliberations
of the solicitor including deliberations with counsel. The issue was whether privilege still attached to
counsel’s own papers such as working papers and notes of conferences because counsel had not been
joined in the claim.
The court held that privilege attached to confidential communications between the solicitors, counsel
and their mutual client. Once privilege regarding those communications had been waived, any
evidence as to those communications could be adduced - see [9], [12], [15] of the judgment.
Thus having waived privilege in relation to counsel's advice, the claimant could not pick and choose
which bits of counsel's advice or deliberations could be withheld from the court. The waiver would
therefore extend to all of counsel’s own working papers, deliberations and notes including,
presumably, any doodles!

2. Despite the results of the Plymouth study, it seems that doodling does not always help with
concentration and memory. One individual is quoted as saying:
“I always doodle, and I don't pay attention … It kind of hurts my memory”.
© Simon Readhead Q.C. 24.11.12