Abstract：
Attorney-client privilege was held by the Supreme Court to extend beyond death in 1996, albeit only ratifying centuries of accepted practice in the lower courts and England before them. But with the lawyer\'s client dead, the natural outcome of such a rule is that privilege--the legal enforcement of secrecy--will persist forever, for only the dead client could ever have waived and thus end it. Perpetuity is not traditionally favored by the law for good reason, and yet a long and broad line of precedent endorses its application to privilege. The recent emergence of a novel species of privilege for psychotherapy, however, affords an opportunity to take a fresh look at the long-tolerated enigma of eternity and the imprudence of thoughtlessly importing it to the newest addition to the family of privileges. Frankly, humanity has always deserved better than legalisms arrogating to the inscrutability of the infinite.
摘要：
最高法院于1996年将律师-客户特权扩展到死亡之外，尽管仅批准了下级法院和英格兰几个世纪以来的公认做法。但律师的当事人死了,这种规则的自然结果是特权——保密的法律实施——将永远存在，因为只有死去的客户才能放弃并结束它。有充分的理由，法律传统上不赞成永久，然而，一条漫长而广泛的先例支持它对特权的适用。最近出现了一种新的心理治疗特权，然而,提供了一个机会来重新审视长期容忍的永恒之谜，以及不假思索地将其引入特权家族的最新成员的轻率。坦率地说,人类总是应该得到比法律主义更好的东西，这些法律主义傲慢于无限的不可估量。
