OPINION
¶ 1 In this special action, petitioners the Salvation A’my and John and Kyna Kelley (herein collectively referred to as the Salvation Army), defendants in the underlying personal-injury action that arose from the near drowning of real party in interest Ethan Bennett, challenge the respondent judge’s order requiring them to produce redacted summaries of interviews of four of the Salvation Army’s employees and six of its volunteers. An investigator had conducted the interviews at the direction of the Salvation A'my’s attorneys, and the Salvation A’my maintains the summaries are protected by the attorney-client privilege and the workproduet doctrine. We accept jurisdiction because the Salvation Army has no remedy by appeal and because “a special action ‘is the proper means to seek relief when a party believes a trial court has ordered disclosure of material protected by a privilege or work product shield.”
Green v. Nygaard,
¶ 2 It also is appropriate to accept special-action jurisdiction here because, at least with respect to the interviews of the Salvation Amy’s employees, the challenge to the respondent judge’s ruling involves “a pure issue of law that may be decided without further factual inquiry.”
Winner Enters., Ltd. v. Superior Court,
Background
¶ 3 The complaint filed in the underlying action alleges that the Salvation A’my and *206 “its employees, volunteers, officers and/or agents” negligently failed to provide adequately trained personnel to supervise children attending the organization’s summer day camp and swimming at its Temple Corps Community Center swimming pool in Tucson. The complaint further alleges that, as a 'result, Ethan Bennett sustained permanent injuries when he nearly drowned there on June 2, 2009. During discovery, the Ben-netts sought production of “copies of all tapes and interview notes of all witnesses tape recorded and interviewed by Vivian Consoli,” a private investigator retained by the Salvation Army’s counsel to investigate the incident. The Salvation Army objected to production of Consoli’s interview summaries on the ground that those documents were “protected by the attorney client privilege and the work-product doctrine.” It also asserted the request for production was “overbroad and unduly burdensome in that it does not set a time-frame or identify the interviewees and literally asks for all tapes and interview notes for all interviews ever conducted by Ms. Consoli.”
¶4 The Bennetts filed a “Motion to Resolve Pending Discovery Disputes between the Parties,” listing Consoli’s summaries as among “documents and information previously requested” that the Salvation Army had not produced. In response, the Salvation Army cited its earlier objections to disclosure of the summaries, maintaining “those investigative materials are privileged and will not be produced.” Relying on Rule 26(b)(3), Ariz. R. Civ. P., and
Longs Drug Stores v. Howe,
¶ 5 At a hearing on their discovery motion, the Bennetts claimed they had no ability to interview witnesses “within a couple of weeks” after the incident, as Consoli had, and so had a substantial need for any witness statements found in the summaries and no other way to obtain “what they said or remembered at that time.” They asserted that “the substance of what [the witnesses] said” during the interviews “is not privileged,” even if Consoli’s “thoughts and impressions” in preparing the summaries were protected under the work-product doctrine.
¶ 6 In response, the Salvation Army noted it had released redacted summaries of interviews Consoli had conducted of children attending the day camp, as previously directed by another judge, but it argued those disclosures were justified by the “special, unique circumstances” associated with child witnesses. It maintained the interviews Consoli had conducted of the children should not be “analogize[d]” to the interviews she had conducted of Salvation Army employees or volunteers. As to the latter, the Salvation Army stated, “[A]ny of those interview summaries where she’s communicating her thoughts and impressions to [counsel] are privileged. They’re work product.” It emphasized that, in conducting the interviews, Consoli had been an “agent of defense counsel,” acting “at his order[,] undertaking directions from him[, and] reporting to him,” and it maintained Consoli’s summaries, made “at the specific request of defense counsel [who asked] for certain interviews ... is work product, period.” It again contended the Bennetts had made no showing of “substantial need” for the summaries or an “inability” to obtain the information contained in them by other means, see Ariz. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(3), because they had deposed the same employees and volunteers that Consoli had interviewed.
¶ 7 After argument, the respondent judge directed the Salvation Army to “redact the work product” from Consoli’s interview summaries and disclose the redacted summaries to the Bennetts. 1 The Salvation Army filed a *207 motion for reconsideration and, citing § 12-2234, argued Consoli’s summaries were protected by attorney-client privilege as well as the work-produet doctrine. The respondent declined to reconsider his ruling and denied the motion without further comment. This special action followed.
Discussion
¶ 8 We will grant special-action relief from a discovery order only if we find the respondent judge has abused his discretion or exceeded his jurisdiction or legal authority.
Twin City Fire Ins. Co. v. Burke,
¶ 9 The Salvation Army relies on both the attorney-client privilege and the work-product doctrine in arguing the respondent judge abused his discretion by ordering it to produce redacted versions of Consoli’s summaries. Those concepts are distinct and often pertain to different subjects, and them application to the same material may produce different results with respect to disclosure. It appeal’s the Salvation Army conflated the two doctrines at the hearing on the Bennetts’ discovery motion. At that time, it emphasized that the Bennetts were seeking summaries of interviews of employees and volunteers, but it failed to articulate the relevance of this fact. Although the relationship of the interviewed individuals to the corporation is material to a claim that the communications were protected by the attorney-client privilege held by a corporate client, it is irrelevant to the question of whether counsel’s summaries of oral statements made by witnesses are protected by the work-produet doctrine. 2 Compare § 12-2234 with Ariz. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(3). Accordingly, we begin by distinguishing the two concepts.
Work-Product Doctrine
¶ 10 Generally, “[p]arties may obtain discovery regarding any matter, not privileged, which is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action.” Ariz. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1)(A) (emphasis added). Thus, the protection afforded an attorney’s work product, codified in Rule 26(b)(3), never has pertained to' privileged communications between attorney and client, but instead addresses the “discovery of documents and tangible things otherwise discoverable under subdivision (b)(1) of [Rule 26] and prepared in anticipation of litigation or for trial by or for another party or by or for that other party’s representative (including the other party’s attorney).” Id. (emphasis added).
¶ 11 Under Rule 26(b)(3), disclosure of such trial preparation materials is required “only upon a showing that the party seeking discovery has substantial need of the materi- *208 ais in the preparation of the party’s case and that the party is unable without undue hardship to obtain the substantial equivalent of the materials by other means.” Id. And, “[i]n ordering discovery of such materials when the required showing has been made, the court shall protect against disclosure of the mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, or legal theories of an attorney or other representative of a party concerning the litigation.” Id.
¶ 12 Significantly, the work-product doctrine affords only a qualified protection from discovery that may be overcome by “a showing of substantial need and inability without undue hardship to obtain the substantial equivalent by other means.”
Butler v. Doyle,
¶ 13 The respondent’s order directing the Salvation Army to disclose redacted versions of Consoli’s interview summaries appears to have been based on the work-product doctrine. However, at least with respect to Consoli’s interviews with the Salvation Army’s employees, we need not determine whether her summaries were subject to disclosure under that rale or whether the respondent judge’s order adequately “protected] against disclosure of the mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, or legal theories of an attorney or other representative of a party.” Ariz. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(3). As discussed below, if those summaries “reveal communications, they are ... protected by the attorney-client privilege.”
Upjohn Co. v. United States,
Arizona’s Attorney-Client Privilege for Corporate Clients
¶ 14 In promulgating the general rule of privilege in Rule 501, Ariz. R. Evid., our supreme court has, to a large extent, “deferred to any legislative definition of ‘privilege[,]’ ... [by] specifying] that questions of privilege are governed by the common law except when statute dictates otherwise.”
State ex rel. Thomas v. Schneider,
¶ 15 As our supreme court has observed, although it protects only the client’s communications to an attorney, and not the facts known by the client, the privilege “is not without its costs. It can interfere with the search for truth when, for example, the client cannot remember that which it told its lawyer. One would like to go to the lawyer and ask.”
Samaritan Found. v. Goodfarb,
176
*209
Ariz. 497, 501,
¶ 16 Moreover, “things become complex” when the attorney’s client is a corporation because “[t]he corporation is a fictional entity” that “can only act through its agents,” giving rise to the question: “[W]hieh communications made by the corporation’s agents are those of the corporate client and not merely those of the individual speaker?”
Samaritan II,
¶ 17 In
Samaritan II,
our supreme court considered whether summaries of interviews of four hospital employees, conducted by a paralegal at the direction of hospital counsel, fell under the protection of the attorney-client privilege.
Id.
at 500,
¶ 18 The court in
Samaritan II
rejected the analysis in
Upjohn,
in which the United States Supreme Court concluded the attorney-client privilege protected counsel’s communications with corporate employees because “ ‘[t]he communications concerned matters within the scope of the employees’ corporate duties, and the employees themselves were sufficiently aware that they were being questioned in order that the corporation could obtain legal advice.’ ”
Id.
at 505,
[W]here someone other than the employee initiates the communication, a factual communication by a corporate employee to corporate counsel is within the corporation’s privilege if it concerns the employee’s own conduct within the scope of his or her employment and is made to assist the lawyer in assessing or responding to the legal consequences of that conduct for the corporate client.
Id.
at 506-07,
¶ 19 The following year, apparently in response to Samaritan II, the Arizona Legislature amended § 12-2234, broadening the test for corporate attorney-client privilege announced in that ease. 6 The statute now provides as follows:
*210 A. In a civil action an attorney shall not, without the consent of his client, be examined as to any communication made by the client to him, or his advice given thereon in the course of professional employment. An attorney’s paralegal, assistant, secretary, stenographer or clerk shall not, without the consent of his employer, be examined concerning any fact the knowledge of which was acquired in such capacity.
B. For purposes of subsection A, any communication is privileged between an attorney for a corporation, governmental entity, partnership, business, association or other similar entity or an employer and any employee, agent or member of the entity or employer regarding acts or omissions of or information obtained from the employee, agent or member if the communication is either:
1. For the purpose of providing legal advice to the entity or employer or to the employee, agent or member.
2. For the purpose of obtaining information in order to provide legal advice to the entity or employer or to the employee, agent or member.
C. The privilege defined in this section shall not be construed to allow the employee to be relieved of a duty to disclose the facts solely because they have been communicated to an attorney.
§ 12-2234.
¶ 20 Relying on
Roman Catholic Diocese of Phx. v. Superior Court,
¶ 21 “When a statute’s language is clear, we need not look beyond its plain language to determine its meaning.”
City of Casa Grande v. Ariz. Water Co.,
Salvation Army Volunteers as “Agents” under A.R.S. § 12-2234
¶22 The Salvation Army maintains Consoli’s interviews of its volunteers were also privileged communications under § 12-2234. It suggests the Bennetts “presume The Salvation Army’s volunteers were its agents because their claims against The Salvation Army are based, in part, upon the actions of those volunteers.” Relying on
Bond v. Cartwright Little League, Inc.,
¶23 Although the Salvation Army’s argument with respect to its volunteers has considerable appeal, we decline to address it on this limited record. Generally, whether an agency relationship exists is a question of fact, although we may determine the exis-fence of such a relationship as a matter of law when the material facts are not in dispute.
Ruesga v. Kindred Nursing Ctrs. W., L.L.C,
Conclusion
¶ 24 We conclude the respondent judge abused his discretion in ordering the Salvation Army to disclose the summaries of interviews of Salvation Army employees, prepared by an investigator at the direction of legal counsel. These communications were privileged under § 12-2234 and are not subject to discovery under Rule 26(b)(1). Consequently, we grant the Salvation Army relief in part by vacating this portion of the respondent’s order. With respect to the Salvation Army volunteers, we direct the respondent to determine whether such volunteers are “agents” or “members” of the Salvation Army, as contemplated by § 12-2234(B), entitling their communications to the same privilege, and to conduct such further proceedings as are necessary, consistent with this decision.
Notes
. Consistent with Rule 26(b)(3), we assume the respondent judge thus authorized the redaction of material reflecting "the mental impressions, *207 conclusions, opinions, or legal theories” of Con-soli or counsel. Ariz. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(3).
. Relying on
Ramsey v. Yavapai Fam. Advocacy Ctr.,
. Arizona recognizes the application of the work-product immunity rule to investigators working for legal counsel or insurers.
See Longs Drug Stores,
. Rule 501, Ariz. R. Evid., provides:
Except as otherwise required by the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of Arizona, or by applicable statute or rule, privilege shall be governed by the principles of the common law as they may be interpreted in light of reason and experience, or as they have been held to apply in former decisions.
. Relevant in this case and addressed below, § 12-2234 was amended in 1994 to add protection for an attorney’s "paralegal” or "assistant,” and to identify the parameters of privileged communications with respect to an attorney for "a corporation, governmental entity, partnership, business, association or other similar entity or an employer.” 1994 Ariz. Sess. Laws, ch. 334, § 1.
.
See
1994 Ariz. Sess. Laws, ch. 334, § 1;
Roman Catholic Diocese,
. At oral argument, counsel for the Bennetts conceded the legislature's 1994 amendments to § 12-2234 have superseded the holding in Samaritan II with respect to civil cases.
. The Bennetts have not suggested the statute does not apply because Consoli was a private investigator retained by counsel, rather than a "paralegal” or "assistant.”
See
§ 12-2234;
see also Samaritan I,
. Should the trial court determine after remand that Consoli’s interviews with Salvation Army’s volunteers were not protected by Arizona's attorney-client privilege, as set forth in § 12-2234 and discussed above, and that the Bennetts have met the requirements for production under Rule 26(b)(3),
see, e.g., Klaiber v. Orzel,
