## Facts

- A federal grand jury investigated possible income tax and controlled substance violations involving Luxana Phaksuan.
- The government subpoenaed Phaksuan’s attorney, William Lathan Osterhoudt, to obtain information about Phaksuan’s payments of legal fees.
- The government stipulated it sought only the amount, form, and dates of payment of legal fees.
- Phaksuan moved to quash the subpoena in the Southern District of California, asserting attorney–client privilege.
- The district court denied the motion to quash, and Phaksuan appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the attorney–client privilege bars enforcement of a grand jury subpoena requiring an attorney to disclose the amount, form, and dates of payment of legal fees paid by a client.
2. Whether an exception applies when disclosure of fee information would likely implicate the client in the criminal activity under investigation.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the order denying the motion to quash.
- The court held that the client’s fee arrangements (and related client-identity information) were not privileged on these facts.
- The court rejected the claimed exception because the requested fee information would not effectively disclose the substance of confidential professional communications.
- The subpoena for the amount, form, and dates of fee payments remained enforceable.

## Legal Principles

- The attorney–client privilege protects confidential professional communications, not all information that may be incriminating.
- Client identity and fee arrangements are generally outside the privilege because they ordinarily do not reveal confidential communications.
- The narrow exception for identity/fee information applies only when disclosure would be tantamount to revealing the content of a confidential communication (i.e., when the government already possesses enough of the communication’s substance that identity/fee details would effectively complete the disclosure).
- The fact that fee information might support a financial investigation or have incriminating value does not, by itself, make it privileged.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that a grand jury may compel an attorney to disclose limited fee-payment details because such information is ordinarily not a confidential attorney–client communication, and the asserted exception did not apply absent a showing that disclosure would effectively reveal privileged communications.


In re Osterhoudt, 722 F.2d 591 (9th Cir. 1983)