Court Opinion

ID: 9466792
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:27:58.12095+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:57.745033
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I dissent.
The record suggests that public corporate papers for corporations “owned, operated or controlled by Benjamin Jamil” are among the documents which Katz claims are privileged. In my view, the district court may compel an attorney to produce documents or copies of documents which have been filed in a public office. As the law is well-settled that an attorney must disclose the identity of his client or of one who has paid him a fee, United States v. Strahl, 590 F.2d 10, 11 (1st Cir. 1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 918, 99 S.Ct. 1237, 59 L.Ed.2d 468 (1979); Matter of Fischel, 557 F.2d 209, 211-12 (9th Cir. 1977); United States v. Tratner, 511 F.2d 248, 252 (7th Cir. 1975); United States v. Ponder, 475 F.2d 37, 39 (5th Cir. 1973); Colton v. United States, 306 F.2d 633, 637, cert. denied, 371 U.S. 951, 83 S.Ct. 505, 9 L.Ed.2d 499 (1963), it follows that an attorney must likewise disclose the identity of one who caused the creation and filing of documents in a public office and that he must produce those of such documents, or copies of such documents, as may be in his possession.
The grand jury subpoena, as modified by Judge Bramwell, requires Katz to produce all public documents or documents that have come into the public record relating to CCS, Communications Control Systems, and Benjamin Jamil or any company owned, operated, or controlled by Jamil. By producing such records, the attorney would only be disclosing the acts of his client which have caused certain records to be made public. The attorney would not thereby disclose any communications which are or were intended to be confidential and protected from judicial process. Testimony regarding delivery and filing is simply evidence of an overt act done by the client. In no respect would the attorney be disclosing anything which can fairly be considered to have been a confidential communication. Indeed, the purpose of the client’s act is to cause the attorney to do something which is and must be public in order to be effective.
Of course, it is true that responses to a subpoena which calls for such documents may give the grand jury information which it does not already have. Doubtless disclosure and production by an attorney showing that Jamil pays the bill and calls the tune would add to what the government already knows and may be highly incriminating. To enable the government to obtain such evidence is precisely why we have grand juries and why their subpoenas should be enforced unless it is clear that disclosure would impair the salutary purpose of encouraging frank communications between a client and an attorney. In the situation before us, no salutary purpose is served by making it more difficult for the government to find out who is attempting to obtain the advantages of anonymity and secrecy by using the public facility of incorporation. If an attorney must say who paid him money, on what theory can he shield the client who has caused him to obtain the public benefits of incorporation by the public filing? Surely the grand jury may require an attorney who has paid the state a filing fee for a particular incorporation to disclose the name of the client who pays the bill; nor is there any reason why an attorney cannot be required to disclose whatever fees have been paid by that client or other corporation.1 It simply saves everybody’s *128time to permit the inquiry to be directed at the outset to the particular party and corporations under investigation. Those who seek the benefits which the laws of our states allow them through the limited liability and the possible tax advantages of the corporate structure should not be heard to complain when a grand jury seeks to determine their activities, or the scope of their corporate-sheltered activities, by directing its inquiries to the one party best qualified to know what has been done publicly and to produce such records.
The investigation of white collar manipulation which engages the attention of law-enforcement officers ought not to be made unnecessarily difficult by specious semantics about confidential communications. I would affirm the order of the district court as modified to relate to all public documents and publicly filed documents caused to be filed by Jamil, CCS, or Communications Control Systems.

. Incorporation in New York, for example, requires the payment of fees to the department of state under N.Y.Exec.Law § 96(9)(b) and N.Y.Tax Law § 180.