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Notable Cases
Fenwick & West v. Superior Court of Santa Clara County: Law Office Search
Searching corporate law offices during criminal investigations is fortunately not a common practice in Silicon Valley. When it does happen, it is a serious matter. As the California Supreme Court once observed, the client-lawyer relationship involves a sacred trust. Intruding on a lawyer's place of business interferes with this trust.
When a District Attorney's investigator and a Special Master enlisted by the prosecutor showed up at the law offices of Fenwick & West, one of Silicon Valley's largest and most highly respected intellectual property firms, it was particularly troubling. Fenwick & West was not corporate counsel for the company under investigation. The firm had done some patent work for the company and had also responded to a call from a company official when the DA had arrived at corporate headquarters with a search warrant, but nothing more.
Fenwick & West saw the intrusion as more than a breach of professional courtesy. The firm feared that every time a possible criminal trade secret theft case arose, the District Attorney would have carte blanche to obtain search warrants for any Silicon Valley law firm that had served the suspect company in some capacity. Fenwick & West wanted to ensure that prosecutors had sufficient cause to search a law office and that they thought twice before doing so.
McManis Faulkner petitioned the Sixth District Court of Appeal
for a writ of mandamus on behalf of Fenwick & West. The
court issued the writ, ruling that the mere fact that an attorney
identifies himself as counsel for a corporation suspected of
criminal wrongdoing is not sufficient cause to search the attorney's
law firm for evidence of crime. The court overturned a Santa
Clara County Superior Court judge's decision that documents
taken from Fenwick & West had been permissibly seized and
could be used in the pending investigation.
McManis Faulkner is pleased to report that to its knowledge
there have been no more law office searches in Silicon Valley,
thanks in large part to the courageous stand taken by the lawyers
of Fenwick & West.
*Fenwick & West v. Superior Court of Santa Clara County (1996), 43 Cal.App. 4th 1272. 51Cal.Rptr. 2d 294
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