## Facts

- Federal investigators sought evidence relating to a law firm partner (“Lawyer A”) and the firm’s representation of “Client A,” who was suspected of aiding drug traffickers through conduct including money laundering and obstruction.
- The government asserted that Lawyer A’s conduct implicated the crime-fraud exception to attorney–client privilege and work-product protection.
- A magistrate judge issued a warrant to search the law firm’s offices and, ex parte, approved a government-proposed “Filter Team” process.
- The Filter Team consisted of government attorneys and non-lawyer federal employees walled off from the prosecution team and was tasked with screening seized materials for privilege and work-product, including making determinations about crime-fraud and release to prosecutors.
- Execution of the warrant resulted in seizure of substantial materials, including documents involving multiple firm clients, many concededly privileged or protected.
- The law firm sought to stop Filter Team review and requested return of documents for its own review or judicial in camera review or review by a special master.
- The district court denied a preliminary injunction, finding no irreparable harm.
- The law firm filed an interlocutory appeal challenging the privilege-review mechanism and denial of injunctive relief.

## Issues

1. Whether the denial of a preliminary injunction against Filter Team review of potentially privileged law-office materials was immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine.
2. Whether assigning first-instance privilege, work-product, and crime-fraud determinations to an executive-branch Filter Team in a law-office search improperly displaced a judicial function.
3. Whether ex parte authorization of the Filter Team procedures, without participation by the privilege holder or judicial in camera review, was permissible.
4. Whether the district court abused its discretion in denying preliminary injunctive relief, including its analysis of irreparable harm.

## Decision

- The Fourth Circuit held it had jurisdiction under the collateral order doctrine because loss of confidentiality from disclosure to government adversaries would be effectively unreviewable after final judgment.
- The court held the Filter Team arrangement approved here was improper, emphasizing the ex parte approval and the delegation of privilege and crime-fraud determinations to executive-branch personnel.
- The court reversed the denial of the preliminary injunction and remanded for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.
- A concurrence agreed with reversal and remand but cautioned against reading the decision as categorically prohibiting all Filter Teams.

## Legal Principles

- Collateral-order review is available where an order threatens irreparable loss of attorney–client confidentiality, because later suppression or appeal cannot restore secrecy once disclosure occurs.
- Determining attorney–client privilege, work-product protection, and application of the crime-fraud exception is a core judicial responsibility, particularly in the law-office search context.
- Ex parte procedures that install government personnel to decide privilege and crime-fraud questions risk improper disclosure and undermine confidence in the protection of privileged attorney–client relationships.
- In law-office searches involving materials of multiple clients, courts must employ heightened safeguards to prevent prosecution access to privileged or protected information.
- For preliminary injunctions in this setting, exposure of privileged materials to government reviewers and potential transmission to the prosecution team constitutes irreparable harm supporting injunctive relief.

## Conclusion

The Fourth Circuit permitted immediate appeal and held that an ex parte, government-run Filter Team process giving executive-branch personnel primary authority to decide privilege, work-product, and crime-fraud issues in a law-office search was improper; it reversed the denial of a preliminary injunction and remanded for judicially supervised privilege-protection procedures.


In re Search Warrant Issued June 13, 2019, 942 F.3d 159 (4th Cir. 2019)