Is a client's communication with an attorney privileged?

Federal courts have consistently accepted the view that certain types of communications are privileged, such as that between attorney and client. See, for example, Colton v. United States, 306 F.2d 633 (2 Cir. 1962), cert. denied, 371 U.S. 951, 83 S.Ct. 505, 9 L.Ed.2d 499 (1962). However, we know of no authority which recognizes a privilege for communications between bank and depositor, and decline to create such a privilege in the present case. The reasons which led to the attorney-client privilege, such as the aim of encouraging full disclosure in order to enable proper representation, do not exist in the case of a bank and its depositor. Moreover, the client, by writing the check which the attorney will later cash or deposit at the bank, has set the check afloat on a sea of strangers. The client knows when delivering the check, and the attorney knows when cashing or depositing it, that the check will be viewed by various employees at the bank where it is cashed or deposited, at the clearing house through which it must pass, and at his own bank to which it will eventually

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return. Thus, the check is not a confidential communication, as is the consultation between attorney and client.

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For such reasons, courts have repeatedly held that checks and bank records are not subject to the protection of the attorney-client privilege. For example, in United States v. Judson, supra, 322 F.2d at 463, we stated: