The intervention from Steve Mark, former Legal Services Commissioner in New South Wales, comes in the wake of reports that the Australian Signals Directorate tapped the communications of a US law firm - speculated to be Mayer Brown  - during trade discussions with Indonesia.

Common sense

Mr Mark said: 'Most of the attacks on law firms – and they are happening – are for commercial information….The problem that lawyers have is that they get so used to referring to rules.  Common sense must prevail ... lawyers have a definite duty to maintain the confidentiality of client information and there are only extreme circumstances where that can be overridden.' 

Mayer Brown has said that it has no information to suggest or confirm that surveillance took place. Source: Lawyers Weekly