United States v. Louis Kovel

FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge.

This appeal from a sentence for criminal contempt for refusing to answer a question asked in the course of an inquiry by a grand jury raises an important issue as to the application of the attorney-client privilege to a non-lawyer employed by a law firm. Our decision of that issue leaves us with the further problem of what disposition is appropriate on a record which, due to the extreme positions erroneously taken by both parties in the court below, lacks the evidence needed to determine whether or not the privilege existed. We vacate the judgment and remand so that…