Bugs in the Office

Consider the following situation: An employee anticipates that his employment is about to be terminated, for what he believes to be discriminatory or otherwise unlawful reasons. After consulting with an attorney, he decides to tape-record conversations with his supervisors, in the hopes of recording a “smoking gun” comment. A short time later, the employee is terminated, and he later commences litigation in federal court against his employer. In that lawsuit, is the employer entitled to obtain copies of the tape recordings through discovery, or are the recordings protected as work product because they were made in anticipation of litigation? If the recordings are discoverable, is the employee nonetheless entitled to withhold producing them until after his supervisor has been deposed? Courts in New York and elsewhere have reached a consensus on the first question, but not the second.