Lawyers have been 'complacent' and 'politically nave' in their battle against state efforts to erode professional privilege, a leading European practitioner told delegates.

Helge Kolrud, the Norwegian president of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of the European Union (CCBE), said non-lawyer politicians and the wider general public did not understand the finer reasons for maintaining legal professional privilege.

But Mr Kolrud continued that lawyers themselves had been 'complacent, taking the view that would be untouchable by governments', and described that approach as being 'politically nave'.

Mr Kolrud's deputy at the CCBE, top German lawyer Hans-Jurgen Hellwig, agreed and issued a dire warning.

He predicted that unless international lawyers increased their co-operation, it will be 'too late to stop the tide of movement towards the total abolition of professional privilege'.

The two were speaking at a roundtable discussion of professional secrecy and privilege.

The Canadian delegation pointed to a recent case in which the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) succeeded in batting away an attack on privilege.

Simon Potter, the CBA's president, related how his association had obtained an injunction and convinced the Canadian minister of justice to overturn a 'requirement that lawyers rat on their clients'.

Also at the session, Paul-Albert Iweins, president of the Paris Bar, pointed out that in-house corporate lawyers were finding themselves in an increasingly precarious position.

'To be effective,' said Mr Iweins, 'in-house counsel must be able to offer advice freely and without fear that an opinion might later be used to the detriment of the company.'