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when he purchased the attorney’s services. See Swift, Currie,
McGhee & Hiers v. Henry, 581 S.E.2d 37, 39 (Ga. 2003) (citing
Resolution Trust Corp. v. H---, P.C., 128 F.R.D. 647 (N.D. Tex.
1989); In re Kaleidoscope, Inc., 15 Bankr. 232, 241 (Bankr. N.D.
Ga. 1981), revd. on other grounds 25 Bankr. 729 (N.D. Ga. 1982);
In re Sage Realty Corp. v. Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn
L.L.P., 689 N.E.2d 879, 882-883 (N.Y. App. Div. 1997)); see also
Averill v. Cox, 761 A.2d 1083, 1092 (N.H. 2000); In re X.Y., 529
N.W.2d 688, 690 (Minn. 1995). These courts have held that the
creation of the case file is part of the services for which the
client pays his attorney, and they have justified their holdings
that clients have full access to and superior property rights in
their entire case file based primarily on the principle that the
fiduciary relationship between attorney and client necessitates
full disclosure. See, e.g., Resolution Trust Corp. v. H---,
P.C., supra at 649-650; see also Swift, Currie, McGhee & Hiers v.
Henry, supra at 40; In re Sage Realty Corp. v. Proskauer Rose
Goetz & Mendelsohn L.L.P., supra at 882.
However, some courts have held that ownership of a case file
is divided between attorney and client. These jurisdictions
generally hold that an attorney’s work product, including
internal legal memoranda and preliminary drafts of documents,
remains the property of the attorney; however, the client has
superior property rights in the end product of the attorney’s
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