You are a business lawyer sitting in your law office and get a telephone call from a client. He tells you there are several federal agents at his company premises with a search warrant for documents and computers, and they are proceeding to open file drawers and are downloading information from computers. Twenty-five years ago, when agents only executed search warrants on bookmaker joints, fencing operations or warehouses containing stolen goods, this call to a business lawyer would have been unlikely. Times have changed with the nature of white-collar crime, and federal prosecutors routinely obtain search warrants for what lawyers would call legitimate businesses. This is advice to the business lawyer with commercial clients who gets such a call. (This article is confined to federal search warrants. Search warrants by state authorities are similar, but space considerations limit this article to federal search warrants.)

Initially, you should be aware that a search warrant is not a subpoena, and you cannot attempt to stall the agents or impede them. The issuance of a search warrant means that the corporation or its officers are likely targets of a criminal investigation. It means that the prosecutors have convinced a neutral magistrate there is evidence of a crime that is located on the premises. A more sinister implication is that the prosecutors may suspect that material might be destroyed if the company is served with a subpoena to produce documents.

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