Opinion ID: 350872
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Legal Opinions

Text: 19 The district court held that exemption five permitted the Air Force to withhold documents 1, 4, and 5 because they contained information which qualifies for protection under the attorney-client privilege confidential communications between an attorney and his client relating to a legal matter for which the client has sought professional advice. 17 We agree that the attorney-client privilege has a proper role to play in exemption five cases. The policy objective of that privilege is certainly consistent with the policy objective of the exemption. Exemption five is intended to protect the quality of agency decision-making by preventing the disclosure requirement of the FOIA from cutting off the flow of information to agency decision-makers. Certainly this covers professional advice on legal questions which bears on those decisions. The opinion of even the finest attorney, however, is no better than the information which his client provides. In order to ensure that a client receives the best possible legal advice, based on a full and frank discussion with his attorney, the attorney-client privilege assures him that confidential communications to his attorney will not be disclosed without his consent. We see no reason why this same protection should not be extended to an agency's communications with its attorneys under exemption five. 20 Other courts have also found that exemption five encompasses the attorney-client privilege. In NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 18 although the Supreme Court rested its holding on the narrower privilege for an attorney's work product, 19 which is restricted to material prepared in anticipation of litigation, it recognized that the attorney-client privilege is also included in exemption five. 20 Porter County Chapter of Izaak Walton League of America v. AEC, 380 F.Supp. 630 (N.D.Ind.1974), held that papers containing legal advice from staff counsel of the Atomic Energy Commission were exempt from disclosure under exemption five, reasoning that the threat of disclosure of the advice they received would severely impede lawyer-client communications within a governmental agency. Id. at 633. 21 The Air Force's description of documents 1, 4, and 5 adequately demonstrates that the information in those documents was communicated to or by an attorney as part of a professional relationship in order to provide the Air Force with advice on the legal ramifications of its actions. To that extent it satisfies most of the necessary conditions for application of the attorney-client privilege. 21 The privilege does not allow the withholding of documents simply because they are the product of an attorney-client relationship, however. 22 It must also be demonstrated that the information is confidential. 23 If the information has been or is later shared with third parties, the privilege does not apply. 24 22 The description of documents 1 and 5 gives no indication as to the confidentiality of the information on which they are based. It simply states the subject, source, and recipient of the legal opinion rendered. In the federal courts the attorney-client privilege does extend to a confidential communication from an attorney to a client, 25 but only if that communication is based on confidential information provided by the client. 26 The Air Force has not shown that the information on which the legal opinions in documents 1 and 5 were based meets this confidentiality requirement, 27 and since the FOIA places the burden on the Government to prove the applicability of a claimed privilege, the court could not assume that it was confidential. We therefore reverse the district court's judgment that documents 1 and 5 are covered by the attorney-client privilege component of exemption five. On remand, the court should order disclosure of these documents unless the Air Force demonstrates either that the attorney-client privilege does apply to these documents because the information on which they are based was supplied by the Air Force with the expectation of secrecy and was not known by or disclosed to any third party, or that they fall within exemption five for some other reason. 28 23 The description of document 4 does offer some indication of the facts on which the legal opinion provided therein was based. It states that the document sets forth the background and negotiations with West Publishing Co. Far from supporting an inference that document 4 meets the confidentiality requirement of the attorney-client privilege, this cryptic description shows that at least part of its information base was not confidential. To the extent that it provides information as to what was offered to West Publishing Co. and what West offered in return, it does not meet the confidentiality test of the attorney-client privilege since that information is also known by West itself. 29 Furthermore, the background facts provided could easily be information which is not restricted to the Air Force personnel directly responsible for the negotiations and therefore not confidential for purposes of this privilege. 30 Therefore, we must also reverse the district court's judgment that document 4 is exempt from disclosure because of the attorney-client privilege, and direct that on remand this document be ordered disclosed unless adequate proof of confidentiality is provided or the court finds that some other privilege justifies nondisclosure. 31