Much of the committee’s work remains sealed, but internal documents indicate that the committee had wide latitude and “should be consulted with respect to just about any privilege issue that might arise in any case.”

A Philip Morris spokesman declined to discuss the committee or when it was formed.

Helping With Strategy

At Davis Polk, lawyers not only represented Philip Morris in litigation, they advised the company on business strategy, including how to protect the image of the cigarette company and how to deal with concerns about the effects of its products. This approach reflects, in part, the longstanding closeness between the firm and tobacco makers. But it also raised concerns among critics that the lawyers had crossed a line, and were essentially becoming agents in the business operation.

There were instances, for example, when Ms. Gillibrand was called upon to help the company deal with mounting public unease about its product and practices, according to interviews and a review of industry documents. Ms. Gillibrand was also schooled in some of the chemistry of cigarettes.

In 1998, for example, Roger G. Whidden, Philip Morris’s vice president for worldwide regulatory affairs, wrote Ms. Gillibrand a letter along with a draft document containing proposed responses to possible questions from reporters about nitrosamines, a cancer-causing agent in cigarettes.

In the letter, Mr. Whidden tells Ms. Gillibrand that the draft was prepared “on the basis of conversations” with her and others at Philip Morris, and asks her to review it. The suggested answers state that Philip Morris is working to reduce the presence of the deadly agent in cigarette smoke.

But the document also makes an assertion that experts say is highly misleading. The document declares flatly that the amount of nitrosamines in cigarette smoke had been reduced through filtration. That assertion was not in keeping with what was known about limitations of certain cigarette filters at the time, the experts say: smokers frequently compensated for them by inhaling more deeply, plugging up filter ventilation holes with their fingers or lips or taking more puffs.