True. Concern about legal issues is what leads one to consult counsel in the first place typically though. Counsel discourages speculation by people who aren&#x27;t involved and aren&#x27;t the right people to be discussing it - like they&#x27;ve read a news article. I haven&#x27;t heard anyone discourage genuine inquiry into a specific issue they&#x27;re concerned about, and that it&#x27;s appropriate for them to raise. It sounds like the employee had specific knowledge about an aspect of the company&#x27;s operations. The word speculation is used a lot in that context, but every piece of legal advice I&#x27;ve ever received (outside of impersonal training) started with me thinking: it seems like this might be a problem ... I wonder if it&#x27;s really a problem or not ...<p>Counsel also gives training about when to ask for legal advice and how to handle privilege and confidential communication, which doesn&#x27;t sound like were followed here (or maybe never provided). As you say, it could be a liability during litigation. However, the response to that could have been &quot;I&#x27;ve added our legal team for input on the issue you&#x27;ve raised. Please don&#x27;t discuss legal issues except in privileged communication with our legal team.&quot; I guess that&#x27;s easier to say and do when you have inhouse counsel. -g-<p>I would also hope that a thread like that would be deemed to be protected by privilege if counsel were immediately added like that as part of a request for legal advice. Perhaps someone more familiar with the boundaries of privilege could comment. From what I understand though, opposing counsel are usually pretty hesitant to attempt to pierce privilege, especially if there&#x27;s a tinge of legitimacy on it. E.g., random guy raises legal concern to superior, who immediately involves counsel. Opposing counsel has to actually attempt to make the case that it&#x27;s not privileged communication, which they are reluctant to do in such cases (but doesn&#x27;t mean it can&#x27;t happen).