Canby, OR asked in Civil Litigation for Oregon

Q: How do I know if a civil subpoena is valid and if I am actually required to provide every item requested?

I am a bookkeeper in Oregon and received a civil subpoena requesting all bank statements, electronic books, tax returns, general ledgers, financial statements, emails, phone records, payments, receipts, etc...for 10 different entities of a former client for a 7yr period of time. How do I know if its a valid subpoena and if I really must provide every scrap of paper even non case related items that I ever had a copy of. Do I have to do this and can I get compensation? This will take hours and hours to go through.

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1 Lawyer Answer

A: You should be able to contact the attorney responsible for sending the subpoena and the court that granted it to verify its accuracy. You should consider retaining your own attorney to help determine what document should be produced.

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