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provides us with general guidance, and we are assisted in our
analysis by a repository of relevant cases decided by courts in
other jurisdictions that have considered the issue of ownership
of client files and their specific contents.
Petitioners maintain that, because petitioner at all
relevant times exercised possession and control of the materials,
petitioner was the legal owner of those materials until he
donated them to the University of Texas. Petitioners argue
further that, because McVeigh did not typically hold any of the
materials in excess of 72 hours, McVeigh did not exhibit control
or dominion over the materials and therefore could not be the
legal owner of them.
As a general rule under Oklahoma law, possession of personal
property is, if unexplained, prima facie evidence of ownership.
Ragan v. Citizens’ State Bank, 131 P. 1093 (Okla. 1913).
Petitioners rely heavily on this general principle of law to
support their assertion of petitioner’s ownership of the
materials. Due to the unique fiduciary relationship between an
attorney and his client, however, we are not persuaded that items
in an attorney’s possession, and especially in a client’s case
file, generally constitute the attorney’s personal property.
Ethical rules regarding an attorney’s obligation to maintain
funds and other property belonging to his client or a third party
separate from the attorney’s own property, for example, indicate
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Last modified: March 27, 2008