SEARCH AND SEIZURE OF LAWYER’S COMPUTER

Abstract

A lawyer’s duty of professional secrecy is the cornerstone of confidence relationship. The search and seizure at lawyer’s office for the purpose of criminal procedure may have repercussions not only on interest of clients, but on the proper administration of justice. For this reason, law should protect the lawyer’s duty of professional secrecy by preventing abuse or arbitrariness. The risk of impinging on this duty is particularly present when lawyer’s computer, containing massive volume of electronic data, is being searched, because some of stored files may be in connection with criminal procedure, while others may be genuinely irrelevant or contain information subject to professional secrecy. Also, some additional procedural safeguards must be taken into consideration when ordering and executing this investigative measure. The failure to comply with those safeguards would render the search of computer and seizure of the electronic data illegal or disproportionate. The author considers these legally controversial questions.