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preparation of the tax return.” It is true that communications
to an attorney not both in confidence and for the purpose of
obtaining legal advice are not protected by the attorney-client
privilege. See, e.g., In re Grand Jury Investigation, 842 F.2d
1223, 1224 (11th Cir. 1987) (“Courts generally have held that the
preparation of tax returns does not constitute legal advice
within the scope of that privilege.”). Nevertheless, if a client
expects that his communication to an attorney for the purpose of
obtaining legal advice will remain confidential, the privilege
not to have that communication disclosed applies notwithstanding
that the communication contains nonconfidential information.
Professor Paul R. Rice, in his treatise, Attorney-Client
Privilege in the United States, describes the general rule as
follows:
The communication from the client to the attorney may
contain nonconfidential information such as business
information, public or technical information, or pre-
existing documents that were not created for the
purpose of communicating with the attorney. This is
not relevant to the point of whether confidentiality
can reasonably be expected in the communications that
contain the information.
Rice, Attorney-Client Privilege in the United States, sec. 6:2,
at 9-11 (2d ed. 1999). See, e.g., Natta v. Zletz, 418 F.2d 633,
637 (7th Cir. 1969) (“It is also immaterial that some of them
[letters] refer to technical or public information.”); Cuno, Inc.
v. Pall Corp., 121 F.R.D. 198, 202 (E.D.N.Y. 1988) (“The fact
that the submissions exclusively contain technical data is not
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