nyonyakay – in my opinion (non legal) despite the fact that the Executive Committee Member concerned may claim legal privilege over the items you want to inspect, as Scotty said he/she’s only in possession of those consequent to legal advice sought and obtained on behalf of the Owners Corporation (O/C).
In those circumstances, the information obtainable under Cl 108 also covers anything that’s “required to be kept under Division 2”, and that includes (at Cl 105) “any property (including records) of the owners corporation” that’s held by a “person” (like your E/C Member) where the E/C has required that person to hand-over that property/records.
So I believe you could inspect whatever records the E/C Member may have as those are the property of the O/C, but only if the Secretary of the E/C has serviced a Notice on him/her to make those records available; and that’s a possible barrier.
So Cl 108 is the best approach, but advise the Strata Manager in writing about what records you wish to inspect and if that leads to a dead-end, and your attempts at mediation with the E/C remain frustrated because it and/or the Member and/or the Strata Manager won’t cooperate, then you could lodge an Application with the NSW Consumer, Trader, and Tenancy Tribunal (CTTT) seeking an Order for the provision of the records you seek under Cl 156.
In addition to the records, like Scotty I’m as concerned about the process whereby the E/C Member instructed Lawyers to act on behalf of the O/C. Was there an E/C Meeting to make that decision, are there Minutes of that Meeting, and did the Lawyers’ estimate of costs exceed the limit imposed under the Regulation?