Magnifying GlassOne challenge that California trustees face is the prospect that confidential attorney-client communications will pass to successor trustees if they resign or are removed from office.  The attorney-client privilege belongs to the client, but the client is the office of the trustee, not the incumbent who holds that office.  Hence, the successor trustee generally gets to see the privileged communications of the predecessor, as the California Supreme Court explained in Moeller v. Superior Court (1997) 16 Cal.4th 1124.

A new opinion from the Court of Appeal, Fiduciary Trust International of California v. Klein (2017) 9 Cal.App.5th 1184, further shows the insecure nature of the attorney-client privilege in the context of California trust administration and may lead successor trustees to be more aggressive in seeking privileged communications of former trustees.