Taylor Lohmeyer Law Firm P.L.L.C. v. United States

United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit · 2020 · Evidence

957 F.3d 505 (5th Cir. 2020)

Updated August 22, 2026

Evidenceattorney-client privilegeclient identityIRS summonsJohn Doe summonsblanket privilege claimprivilege logconfidential communication

Facts

Taylor Lohmeyer Law Firm provides estate- and tax-planning advice. After an IRS audit of one taxpayer revealed that the firm had helped establish offshore entities and accounts used to avoid U.S. income tax, the IRS obtained and served a John Doe summons seeking records identifying U.S. clients for whom the firm had formed foreign entities, opened or maintained foreign accounts, or assisted foreign financial transactions from 1995 through 2017. The firm argued that all responsive documents were protected by attorney-client privilege because disclosing client identities would reveal confidential communications. The district court rejected the firm's blanket privilege assertion, enforced the summons, and invited the firm to assert privilege on a document-by-document basis supported by a privilege log.

Issue

Whether the district court erred in enforcing the IRS John Doe summons despite the firm's claim that all responsive documents were protected by attorney-client privilege because disclosing client identities would itself reveal confidential communications.

Rule

Attorney-client privilege applies only if the proponent shows a document contains a confidential communication between attorney and client made for the client's primary purpose of obtaining legal advice or services. The privilege is construed narrowly, the proponent bears the burden of proof, ambiguities are resolved against the proponent, and privilege generally must be asserted document by document rather than as a blanket claim. Client identities ordinarily are not privileged, except in the narrow and rare circumstance where revealing the identity would itself disclose an otherwise privileged confidential communication, such as the confidential motive for seeking legal advice.

See the holding & full analysis

Create a free KwikCourt account to unlock the rest of this brief — and practice the case.

The court's holding and reasoning
Doctrine tests, pitfalls & exam hypotheticals
10 practice questions + 4 AI-graded essays on this case

Free sample · practice this case

Test yourself

One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

The IRS serves a John Doe summons on Lakefront Tax Counsel, a small law firm in Chicago, seeking records identifying U.S. clients for whom the firm created foreign entities or arranged foreign transfers during a 15-year period. The firm moves to quash, arguing that every responsive document is privileged because revealing any client's identity would show the client sought legal advice about offshore matters, but the firm submits no privilege log.

How should the court most likely rule on the firm's privilege claim?

Explanation. The privilege proponent bears the burden of showing that particular materials contain confidential communications made for the primary purpose of obtaining legal advice or services. The privilege is construed narrowly, ambiguities are resolved against the proponent, and it generally may not be asserted as a blanket over an undifferentiated group of documents. A court therefore may enforce the summons while allowing later document-specific privilege claims supported by a privilege log.