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Unshredded case files in trash pose security threats

Client info with personal data appear to be from a local lawyer’s office.

Case files are strewn across a dumpster after people from the William Bowen law firm trashed them Friday, June 26, 2009. The files contain client information such as case information, correspondence, Social Security numbers, names and addresses.

Pat Auckerman/Staff photographer Case files are strewn across a dumpster after people from the William Bowen law firm trashed them Friday, June 26, 2009. The files contain client information such as case information, correspondence, Social Security numbers, names and addresses.

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By Jessica Heffner, Staff Writer Updated 11:55 PM Saturday, July 4, 2009

MIDDLETOWN — Stacks of business and real-estate case files from a Middletown law firm were left unshredded in a public garbage dumpster June 26, making the Social Security numbers and other personal information on the documents accessible to anyone.

The files apparently came from the office of attorney William Bowen, 1 N. Main St. downtown. His firm handles bankruptcy, debt, business law and estate planning.

The Middletown Journal discovered piles of files containing case information, Social Security numbers, addresses and client correspondence in the dumpster without a lid in an alley behind the law office, accessible from Main Street and Central Avenue.

Many documents, mostly from the 1990s, were printed with the law office’s letterhead and some contained confidential, attorney-client privilege disclosures.

At least two people were observed inside the law office filling a large bin with more of the same sort of files and then emptying it into the dumpster.

Bowen said he had no comment on the disposal of the files.

According to Ohio Code of Professional Responsibility, attorneys are required to safeguard client property, including case records, during and after representation.

Even if a client tells his attorney to dispose of a file, the attorney is still required to safeguard the information during its destruction, said Arthur Greenbaum, a law professor for Ohio State University’s Michael E. Moritz College of Law.

“You go to lawyers for all sorts of personal matters,” he said, “and ... we simply have a rule that says all information is to be kept confidential.”

Butler County Prosecutor Robin Piper said that given the possibilities for identity theft, attorney-client files should be properly disposed of, and “putting (them) in a public Dumpster ... is not acceptable.”

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