Sher Tremonte Files Amicus Brief on Behalf of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in D.C. Court of Appeals Mandamus Petition Involving Attorney-Client Privilege

On February 9, 2026, Sher Tremonte LLP filed a proposed amicus curiae brief in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on behalf of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) in support of a petition for a writ of mandamus in In re Meta Platforms, Inc. and Instagram, LLC, No. 26-OA-0001. The amicus brief urges the Court to grant mandamus to vacate a D.C. Superior Court ruling that applied the crime-fraud exception to communications between Meta and its in-house counsel.

In NACDL’s amicus brief, Sher Tremonte and co-counsel Flowers Keller LLP explain that although the underlying case is a civil action, the Superior Court’s ruling threatens to erode the attorney-client privilege in ways that could have profound consequences for people accused of crimes and the lawyers who represent them. The brief argues that treating routine, ethically sound advice about mitigating legal exposure and avoiding the creation of potentially inculpatory evidence as crime, fraud, or “misconduct” covered by the crime-fraud exception runs contrary to the core purposes of the attorney-client privilege and jeopardizes the constitutional rights to counsel and against self-incrimination.​

The brief highlights how expanding the crime-fraud exception as the Superior Court did could chill open and honest communication between the criminally accused and their attorneys, undermining effective representation and the fair administration of justice.

NACDL is a nonprofit bar association that represents thousands of criminal defense lawyers across the country, including private practitioners, public defenders, military defense counsel, law professors, and judges, and regularly participates as amicus curiae in cases of broad importance to the criminal legal system.

Sher Tremonte represented NACDL together with co-counsel Kobie Flowers of Flowers Keller LLP.  The Sher Tremonte team on the filing included partners Michael Tremonte and Noam Biale, associates Rebecca Prager and Eleuthera Sa, and paralegal Anand Chitnis.

Read the proposed amicus brief here.