Rule 9.2.1 provides an exception to the duty of confidentiality where your client has expressly or impliedly authorised a disclosure. 

The Law Council of Australia’s commentary on the professional conduct rules (LCA commentary) notes that there is a degree of overlap between Rule 9.2.1 and rules allowing a solicitor to impart a client’s confidential information to colleagues in their law practice, other than where such information was clearly confided personally and exclusively to the solicitor (Rule 9.1.1) and that recognise that a solicitor may be either permitted or compelled by law to disclose a client’s confidential information (Rule 9.2.2). The LCA notes that: 

Rule 9.2.1 also encompasses situations where disclosure of client confidential information is necessarily incidental to the provision of the legal service sought by the client. The purpose of the express or implied authorisation exception in Rule 9.2.1 is to enable disclosure of information “precisely so that it can be used or disclosed for its purpose in the representation” and the duty of confidentiality “must be read subject to the lawyer’s authority to use and disclose information – albeit for the limited purpose of the retainer – where this is necessary for, or incidental to, the proper and normal conduct of the retainer.” 

A client may expressly authorise you to disclose confidential information in various circumstances, such as where a client has agreed to obtaining counsel’s advice, or instructed or agreed to the solicitor obtaining advice or assistance from another law practice. 

The LCA commentary notes that an example of implied authorisation includes a situation where a solicitor is retained to undertake a property conveyance. In this scenario, the solicitor would be considered to have implied authorisation to communicate such client information as is necessary to complete the conveyancing transaction to the other party and their solicitors, relevant financial institutions, and relevant government agencies.