In Re Sealed Case’s Empirical Analysis
1997
Citation profile
29 federal appellate · 26 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 70 later decisions — most recently March 2019 · most notably Olson v. Accessory Controls & Equipment Corp. (2000), In re Sealed Case (1998)
29 federal appellate · 26 district · 4 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Hickman v. Taylor · Upjohn Company v. United States · Clark v. United States · United States v. Zolin · Perlman v. United States
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 70 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) the asserted holder of the privilege is or sought to become a client; (2) the person to whom the communication was made (a) is a member of the bar of a court or his subordinate and (b) in connection with this communication is acting as a lawyer; (3) the communication relates to a fact of which the attorney was informed (a) by his client (b) without the presence of strangers (c) for the purpose of securing primarily either (i) an opinion on law or (ii) legal services or (iii) assistance in some legal proceeding, and not (d) for the purpose of committing a crime or tort; and (4) the privilege has been (a) claimed and (b) not waived by the client.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Companies operating in today’s complex legal and regulatory environments routinely seek legal advice about how to handle all sorts of matters .... There is nothing necessarily suspicious about the officers of this corporation getting such advice.... Showing temporal proximity between the communication and a crime is not enough.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“A client could intend criminal or fraudulent conduct but not carry through the intended act. The exception should not apply in such circumstances, for it would penalize a client for doing what the privilege is designed to encourage — consulting a lawyer for the purpose of achieving law compliance. By the same token, lawyers might be discouraged from giving full and candid advice to clients about legally questionable courses of action. On the other hand, a client may consult a lawyer about a matter that constitutes a criminal conspiracy but that is later frustrated — and, in that sense, not later accomplished ... or, similarly, about a criminal attempt. Such a crime is within the [crime-fraud] exception ... if its elements are established.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.