21 GLO's Join To Establish Anti-Hazing Hotline...
 

Brother Norval Stephens, a former International President of Delta Tau Delta, led the campaign to establish an anti-hazing hotline.

Here is a link to the announcement on our webpage:

http://delts.org/hazing_hotline.html

The organizations involved are listed at the bottom of the link.

Since it's going to an attorney's office. Is everything covered under attorney privilege? Since it mentioned they will notify proper authorities where required I'm thinking probably not.

According to the release, the notification will go the the organization, and will go to law enforcement or other authorities in states where the law requires that notification.
I'd read that to mean that if the law doesn't require it, the notification will go only to the GLO.

Our GC attorneys need to chime in here, but I'd also guess that if the law firm doesn't already represent the GLO, there wouldn't be attorney/client privilege involved anyway.

There has been some discussion between some of my campus' staff about this and I'd love to hear some thoughts from the GC legal experts on one of our concerns, but I'm also interested in responses from any HQ staff or volunteers that may be viewing the thread.

Let's say an anonymous call goes through the hotline for an organization on my campus; the GLO headquarters is notified, but the campus and local law enforcement are not notified because it is not required by the state law. Would the HQ move to investigate the org without notifying the campus, or possibly not move on the tip at all?

I would think that the groups that agreed to participate in the program are considered to be clients of the firm. I'm no legal expert but that's what seems logical to me.

Also, I would think that I would stongly discourage members of non participating groups to use that number at all. If there's not any kind of attorney privilege it could cause even more problems. I'm all for reporting hazing to the proper authorities. That number would not be "proper" for non participating groups.

I really think it's questionable whether there's privilege. Attorney client privilege only apples to communications between attorney and client which are for the purpose of seeking legal advice AND there must be an expectation of privacy.

In this case, the *organization* is the client. The individual is not. A/C privilege within organizations is a tricky thing. Personally, I wouldn't expect there to be A/C privilege, although, I think my conclusion is questionable.

I think we could probably find A/C privilege where each organization is involved. They probably all separately contract with the firm rather than through this umbrella organization.

The bottom line is -- if someone was going to report something and that person wanted it to be anonymous, they should just remain anonymous. That's the only safe way to keep their identity secret. Otherwise, there's always a chance they'll be asked to come forward in a more prominent manner.

eta: This isn't legal advice.. just my opinion. Of course, if the individual is concerned, they ought to definitely consult an attorney in their own state (and in that case, A/C privilege almost always applies).

And I don't see anything that says anonymous contacts would be treated any differently.

As I read it, the law firm will simply be passing along the information and the specific laws of the juristiction -- not offering any legal advice to any party or group.