may be something that should be investigated further but it does not know the client's identities or who to investigate as the attorney client privilege protect law firm records that would reveal those identities the answer under  circuit case law is well this case law for many other circuits is yes and that is why the just report error by granting the government's motion to enforce the facts of this case or not overly complicated it was just one hear right there was one hearing granted it looked like at the end of the hearing the parties agreed they would exchange ex parte material is there anything relevant the text parte the door decision you know i don't think so there were also filings on the day of the hearing and i think there may have been additional filing but not  consistent with our case law applies but isn't it correct that at that hearing counsel did tell the court that taxpayer one was a unique and one off situation not exactly what what the  reading hendrix's declaration and from that i deduce they must know confidential communications that's a very different story than lieberman right that john doe summons lead and said here is the subpoenaing in that case because it's so similar here in lieberman the government the government suspected that the law firm had given all of its all of its clients for whom it performed a particular type of transactional service particular quote books records papers billing letters in any other data which contains reflects or evidences the names addresses of social security numbers of the clients who paid fees in connection for the services it's very similar to this to the summons that was issued here and i would like to to sort of broaden the court's analysis because i think that this court can make its decision on its on its own the council can i just make sure you're reading from the decision and lehman or from documents that were be issued which she says is that she is an expert in in this field of figuring out if offshore accounts were used as a mechanism to avoid paying taxes she characterizes herself as an expert in that field she says or sworn affidavit is i think spanned sixty some odd pages of there's a lot of things to it she states in her affidavit that this particular firm set up an offshore structure and that its work is quote premised on the principle that a u s beneficiary is not tax on the current earnings or distributions of the trust that's what she says the advice the firm is giving its clients this is with respect to taxpayer one with respect to taxpayer one she says specifically as a taxpayer one and consistent with this principle or the board's business model or the advice it's given that the firm advised him that he quote could borrow money from the offshore structure without u s tax obligations and that no income was reported now during her best a geisha the of this the sixty some odd page af through that if you use your time as the ones running so in the jones case you start with the proposition that jones is helping a client who is arrested on a drug charge some unknown person is painting the bills and paying the bond the government becomes convinced of this person's motives and pain these bills suggests that they were either implicated in the in the drug situation or what they said in the jones opinion is that he may have had completely separate problems that he was seeking and dealing with this law firm particularly tax issues the government suspected that somebody was funneling money into the firm and was aborting the payment of taxes so what they did is they issued a subpoena to the firm give me all books and records that would reveal the identity of this pay or this core relying significantly on the baird decision said that look ordinarily klein identities are not privileged but there is an important exception that we recognize we have clearly recognized that are an exception exists under certain circumstances where an attorney must conceal the identity of a client not merely communications from inquiry the court in jones recogni law my question here is much broader this is an iris scan it's like a grand jury subpoena right they're not harassing and they're not fishing they do have relevant information from taxpayer want they want the d s then the government at the hearing says if there's anything privileged in any document that you would be supplying to us withhold it give us a privileged walk why isn't that complete protection of the turnpike group because the attorney client privilege extends the client identities because the gully where is the last link only when the i d s the identity will then match with the disclosed confidential communication but here their argument is notion was what the pavlik decision focused on it grated that was sort of an aspect of jones but not that wasn't the deal television shows in jones it dealt with the fact that the government was aware of or suspected may have been done business with the firm and it wanted to understand more details about it not really the last link the court made a comment about the last link now in the pavlik decision which came a little bit later the court really focused on the last line and they identity was privilege and on the peel the th circuit's of look st of all you haven't established the nature of the privilege because there is no evidence that he was even a client all that you argued is that if i give over his identity the government will investigate him and possibly find the act of a crime hence the last link and that's why the district court protected the identity the th circuit rejected that and they said what is critical to the decision in jones is that the government is aware of the general type and nature of legal services that are provided it's curious about those services but it is not entitle to them if there's an attorney client relationship established but so you think of last you financial accounting system the conduct of any foreign financial transaction in your view getting the identity of the client that did that triggers this doctrine because of because of that language i just that is precisely correct and let me read something from the race r decision number two this is what judge king wrote and it fully supports what you just said we judge king wrote is she gave an example for example a client may wish to consult an attorney concerning adopting a child but not wish the matter to be made public such an individual normally will reveal the nature of his problem as well as the identity and reasonably expect both to remain confidential if the disclosure of the clients are going to be will also reveal the confidential purpose for which he consulted and turny we protect both the confidential communication and the client's identity so interview in your view then is our case law diverged does it diverge from the seven circuits case law and  o is is completely in a political here because the the target of the investigation in that case was the organization itself was b t o the government wasn't aware of and was a curious about b d s clients and they weren't looking at and reasons why p t o s clients may have consulted with an attorney or anything like that and what judge king wrote in what the fist circuit held in the nd case in the example that i just gave you is critical because the essence of the government's argument and what they've argued repeatedly is that because the taylor law or law firm assisted not only in giving advice but they set out very strange actions allegedly and those documents ordinarily would not be privileged that's in essence their position well or counsel the i r s agent interviewed mr taylor who died in two thousand and sixteen after obviously after the interview and my understanding is that he estimated the firm represented twenty to thirty clients between the ninety's and early two thousand about foreign entities now this is the name partner in the law firm telling the r s this and you could almost say it's a waiver he can't waive the privilege for his client but still it it's a critical factor me he says he's acknowledging the types of services the government is curious about those services and the only way they can draw the link to the to the nature of the of the professional advice and what the law firm did is  learning the identities that's what this court court says and has held because you saw it with my question which is we don't know what the advice was that was given to the others other than the general statements in the declaration but my question to you that i asked earlier is why isn't it sufficient for you to object document by document if indeed there is a confidential communication because no document is responsive to the subpoena unless it reveals a client identity and they are not entitled to client identities under th circuit law they are not in title no the idea is this if low iron taylor were in the business of setting up foreign bank accounts there's no communication that the government wanting to know did they set up the out i want to mention to you that you're footnote one in your brief that page one where you your statement in your brave is this is an important case that for understandable reasons is garnered national attention and then you cite numerous morning your honour's dog was running for united states nurse the only issue in this appeal is whether the law firm can withhold all records responsive to an ira subpoena seeking information about a subset of its clients pursuant to a blanket privilege claim affiliated with cartels so instead of pursuing them we're just going to ask you for your entire client list that sounds pretty similar to the jones case your honor and probably not theirs it sounds like there when even be a reasonable basis is basically fishing out there which is kind of what the example you're suggesting sounds well they're not fishing this is a you're right there we've noticed that your past clients are cartel figures and so we'd like to know all your client lis the your understanding of our case law and then we can talk about how it applies to the affidavit in the summons here if that constitutes legal advice which and that was the finding that was made in race or queen of the district court and so on those facts this court found there was no abuse of discretion in the district court's findings there initially this court reversed the district court saying he didn't make the adequate findings in order to for this to be found to be privilege but based on that africa sent back to back the court said there is an adequate showing here because it's in extra could we enter twined with the disclosure of privileged legal  much my question is what was the privilege legal advice in the case it's it's not entirely clear here but the it is clear that the district court found that that was privileged and it may be related to the individual's motive for seeking legal help and so ok so if a client of taylor low privileged such that if i give the identity of the client who sought that advice i have breached attorney client privilege we would submit that it's not there are one think that relates to the general nature of the legal services provided which this court has authorities along those lines that are more specific to tax matters that are so in our our submissions to the court below at record two hundred and thirty nine do you know whether if a client seeks a law to do these things that i just read or there are independent legal obligations that that be disclosed you know i'm a forming a foreign entity is that is there an independent legal obligation so that so there might be disclosures that the client would have to make on their tax returns for example if you have a foreign account that's over ten thousand dollars you generally have to disclose that on your tax return and file the f r form it would have to get into more azure honors noted that we we recognize that this was served on a law firm we anticipated that there would be privilege here issues here which is which is why in the summons itself we requested information equivalent to a privilege log in response to this to the extent that they were claiming privilege in that set record ninety eight or ninety nine and we've never taken the position that there are no privilege records at all here and as this court has stated in the e e o c case there's no presumption that communication is privileged just because a lawyer is involved and unusual and we tried to take measures to be sensitive to that here stablish the timeline for when mr taylor the deceased partner when he was interviewed and and estimated the prom represented twenty  dollars clients between the ninety's and the early two thousand the farm about foreign entities part of the government's decoration how is that what's the timeline for that in conjunction with the negotiations with taxpayer won that ended up his paying the yes yes your honor and the way i i'm not entirely sure from the record what we have it does suggest that it ether at least initially taxpayer one was not waiving the privilege and so some of these discussions i don't believe so your honor in generally there are procedures within the department of justice before we'll go into court in for the oddity of this leave in case law to me when i looked at the hearing the district court itself was trying to promote a compromise if you recall that recipient that they can see to assert privileges to documents but you do ask for the names that am i correct in the context yes you are and that's the procedure we followed here all the specific advice as i think  became apparent in my colleague's discussion here was that all related to things that mr taylor advised taxpayer of one these aren't things that the revenue agent knows the firm necessarily told to the other john doe's at issue here and that's the fine line because when it ends up in her declaration she's speaking more broadly right then at the hearing i thought that the law firm was saying to a taxpayer one was different he was unique he didn't follow your advice we didn't know that that's part of what they were saying yes they said there were some key distinctions between taxpayer one and some of the other clients that issue here including that the other clients didn't necessarily use offshore corporations that in a sign income to offshore trust in the same way so they said there were distinctions here which suggest that there would have been different advice given to the and i think just underscores that this was a broader a product a request for information about their clients we have a reasonable basis to inquire but we do not know what they necessarily advise these and your honour's we would submit that video suydam in is consistent with the law of this this circuit we would submit that that is the most applicable analogy here because in that case the iris was seeking information about clients of the accounting firm who participated in a number of different types of tax shelters the court there ultimately held that participation in one of those twenty types of tax shelters described in the summons would would not disclose a motive or other confidential communication privilege and we think that's what this would disclose from this we would learn that these various clients participated in various types of foreign but we don't necessarily know what the firm advised them or what their motives were for participating in those procedures if your honour's have no further questions i just want to close by noting that the attorney client privilege is intended to to encourage people to communicate with attorneys in order to form their conduct with the law and because the privilege prevents the disclosure of relevant evidence impedes the quest for truth it has been said that it must be strictly confined within the narrowest possible limits of the logic of that principle and this is the  the trouble case they went on to explain that it seems evident to us that a broad privilege against disclosure of the identity of clients in a fee information might easily become an immunity for corrupt or criminal acts such as shield would create unnecessary but considerable temptations to use lawyers as conduits of information or of commodities necessary to criminal schemes or as launderers of money the bark in the system of justice will suffer little if all involved we would request that if you found well i just have a quick question for you that yes i understand that the law forms declaration states other clients there are other clients situation is different from taxpayer one is that correct yes you how does that how do we how do we take that into account how does that play into this question it's a little odd situation because to the extent that they were coming out and saying that for example they said the opposite if they said these clients all receive the same exact advice as taxpayer one generally speaking disclosing an aspect of a privileged communications selectively would waive that so  that would be problematic here they're kind of same the opposite it sounds like but that only that doesn't really undercut the reasonable basis we have to think that something might have been going on here but it also suggests that they did not receive the same exact advice and we don't know the advice so we think it actually supports our position thank you necessarily to protect the what is ordinarily thought of as a privilege confidential attorney client box and that's the argument is look just give us a privilege or we're not asking you for your privileged attorney client vice that isn't the issue in this case the issue in this case is whether or not the identity of the client itself not the advice given the identity in an of itself is privileged the general rule is typically not the exception to the general rule acknowledge jones and all these other cases that we've talked about to the exception is invoked when the government becomes aware of what this client's motivation might be for seeking the services to perform an adoption for example somebody may go to a law firm and have legal questions about legalities of a particular adoption and they want the attorney to walk through the adoption process if the government investigates somebody and finds out that the manner in which this was done was not it in accordance with the law in all respects and let's say they investigated one particular client and found that out and they shoei a mass subpoena saying give us all of your records for anybody that you're given advice to we don't want to know the a box about the about the about the adoption but we want to see whether or not the adoptions that you've helped others with were properly performed we have a need to investigate give us that list give us all records  documents that show payment records the actual adoption agency records we wanted all would judge king wrote and it is squarely a political in this case is that you don't get the identities when you suspect that there's a need something was done you suspect there's a need for additional investigation because something may not have been done right and that's what they're trying that's what they want in this case the identity becomes privileged the issue is not the particular advice once they're aware of the nature of the services that were performed and they suspect something was untoward and they want to know for sure it's not they the issue is not whether or not the transactional documents actually reflect things that could be redacted as typically or as ordinary attorney client privilege is bucks the issue is any response and document that bears the identity that's what they're asking for so that they can perform an audit the identity itself is privileged the documents that  responsive to their subpoena reflect the identities that's what they've asked for in fact what they support and in my understanding you would urge that the district court's compromise be one your firm would have to adhere to in other words all these documents would be turned over with the i d s redacted they did it's it's worse than that though i mean that it's my position is that no document they don't get to have any of the documents because the only reason the only reason the documents are relevant to them is that they will enable them to ascertain the client identities even if i were to redact a client identity from a document if that's the only thing i'm a lot of a loud steward out what if the document itself has the name of some you know foreign bank or foreign company or whatever then the next thing you know is there's a subpoena that's issued they trip to try to track that down in the spirit goes to them to find out any documents that you've ever exchanged with the law for all as a way to get to the one and only thing that they really want to know that's the client identity that's why importantly in the jones case the race records decisions the it leave make case every case that has has recognized that the client identity itself is privileged has not talked about this in terms of will do a purple dog do partial redactions and this and that these documents are categorically privilege and the government subpoena is rejected outright as a as a clear violation of the attorney client privilege what he's argued is that they don't really know what the advice is even they really suspect necessarily much of anything which is you say that you say in your declaration that the you're a client situation is different i don't know why you put that in your declaration but i suppose that's i think that's where you're saying you're plots situation is different from taxpayer one in effect you're saying we didn't give we didn't help them establish also offshore entities i think that all he said is that is that he didn't is that the same advice wasn't necessarily provided you know across the board everybody probably depended on what wants and needs they have i mean not everybody's going to have the same assets the same desires and whatnot but the point is the only reason that they want to have these documents is what the revenue will uncover quote substantial evidence regarding the identity of the us taxpayers with offshore structures used to avoid or evade intact thank you thank you