Two recent cases show that the “intensely practical” work product doctrine can protect a lawyer’s selection of intrinsically unprotected material — if the selection would give the adversary insight into the lawyer’s strategy or thinking.
In Harmony Biosciences, LLC v. Lupin Ltd., the court noted that the “identification of specific protected material that was sent to a particular expert may reveal aspects of Plaintiffs’ litigation strategy or mental impressions.” Civ. A. No. 23-1286-JLH-SRF, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 255084, at *9 (D. Del. Dec. 2, 2025). Eight days later, a court halfway across the country explained that asking a litigant to identify “all persons that [the party] interviewed during the course of their investigation” reveals “the potential for significant insights into the … lawyers’ preparation of their case (and thus their mental processes).” Oklahoma Hospital Medicine Physicians, LLC v. Gottlieb LLC, Civ. A. No. 3:24-CV-2492-D, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 255460, at *13-14 (N.D. Tex. Dec. 10, 2025) (alterations in original) (citations omitted).
Neither of these cases happened to mention the frequently used name for this common sense approach, the Sporck doctrine, from a 40-year-old Third Circuit decision, Sporck v. Peil, 759 F.2d 312 (3d Cir. 1985).