A federal judge in the Central District of California is allowing the makers of the popular Tabs3 billing software to assist prosecutors in accessing data on Michael Avenatti's seized law firm servers.

The underlying argument involved claims of attorney-client privilege by Avenatti, which prosecutors said doesn't apply to law firm accounting data.

In their reply to Avenatti's opposition to their request, assistant U.S. Attorneys Brett Sagel and Alex Wyman said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has repeatedly ruled attorney-client privilege does not cover financial accounting data that don't reveal "specific research or litigation strategy," which the Tabs data does not.