Who owns the client file? What Rule 1.16(d) asks

The question tends to arrive at an awkward moment. A client has moved on, or a lawyer has, and someone asks for the file. The ABA Model Rules answer part of the question. Jurisdictions differ on the rest.

This post explains, in general terms, what the Model Rules and the ABA’s formal opinions say. ABA ethics opinions are not binding on individual states, as Lawyers Mutual of North Carolina points out, and each jurisdiction’s own rules, opinions and case law govern any real matter.

The short answer

The client is entitled to its papers and property, and the lawyer surrenders them when the representation ends. What counts as the client’s depends on where the lawyer practices.

By the ABA’s 2015 count, most jurisdictions follow an entire-file approach: everything in the file goes to the client unless a specific exception applies. Others, along with the ABA’s own Formal Opinion 471, follow a narrower end-product approach. Formal Opinion 520, issued in January 2026, adds a limited duty to convey information that never made it into the file at all.

What Rule 1.16(d) says

Model Rule 1.16(d), as quoted in Formal Opinion 520, requires a lawyer “[u]pon termination of representation” to:

take steps to the extent reasonably practicable to protect a client’s interests, such as giving reasonable notice to the client, allowing time for employment of other counsel, surrendering papers and property to which the client is entitled and refunding any advance payment of fee or expense that has not been earned or incurred.

The duty does not depend on how the relationship ended. The rule’s comment, also quoted in Opinion 520, applies it “[e]ven if the lawyer has been unfairly discharged by the client.”

What the rule does not do is define “papers and property to which the client is entitled.” As the ABA Journal noted when Opinion 471 was released, that gap is where the ambiguity lives, and where jurisdictions differ.

Entire file or end product: where jurisdictions differ

The entire-file approach starts from a presumption that the lawyer returns everything in the file unless a specific exception applies. The District of Columbia’s Ethics Opinion 333 (2005) calls it “the majority, ‘entire file’ approach.” The same opinion notes that the Restatement (Third) of the Law Governing Lawyers takes a similar line in section 46(2):

On request, a lawyer must allow a client or former client to inspect and copy any document possessed by the lawyer relating to the representation, unless substantial grounds exist to refuse.

The end-product approach separates the finished products of the lawyer’s work (pleadings, executed instruments, significant correspondence) from the internal material that led to them, such as drafts, research memos and conflicts memoranda. The client is entitled to the first group; the second ordinarily stays with the lawyer. DC’s opinion describes this as the view of a minority of courts and state ethics authorities.

The ABA itself sits on the end-product side. In a footnote to Opinion 520, the ABA’s ethics committee describes Opinion 471 as having “adopted the narrower ‘end product’ approach,” acknowledges that opinions in some other jurisdictions take the more expansive entire-file view, and says it does not intend to suggest that it no longer adheres to the end-product approach.

What Opinion 471 lists

Formal Opinion 471, released in July 2015, arose from a lawyer who had represented a municipality for ten years; when the representation ended, the municipality asked that all its files, open and closed, go to new counsel. The opinion assumed the lawyer’s fees had been paid, so it did not address liens for unpaid fees.

Its conclusion: Rule 1.16(d) does not require surrender of everything in the lawyer’s possession, but at a minimum the client is entitled to the materials that would likely harm the client’s interest if not provided. The Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania summarized both lists:

The right-hand column is not absolute. When a matter is still live, protecting the client can require more. The ABA Journal’s report on the opinion notes that if a filing deadline is imminent, the lawyer must return “the most recent draft and relevant supporting research.”

Opinion 520: what never made it into the file

Formal Opinion 520, dated January 21, 2026, takes up a question the rule’s text and comment do not address: whether a former lawyer must answer requests for information that was never written down. Its answer is a limited yes. According to the opinion’s summary, a request ordinarily requires a response when three things are true:

1. The lawyer acquired the information during the course of the representation.
2. The information is unavailable from other sources.
3. It is important to the client’s interests in the matter in which the lawyer formerly represented the client.

The limits are as important as the duty. The opinion states that Rule 1.16(d) does not require a lawyer to acquire new information, generate written responses, or provide further legal services. A summary on The Law for Lawyers Today, a Thompson Hine blog, adds that the duty can reach unrecorded facts, the reasons for strategic choices, impressions of witness credibility and unrecorded client communications, but not requests about different matters, nor time-consuming tasks beyond what is reasonably practicable.

One line in the opinion matters for every firm’s records. In many circumstances, it says, promptly handing over the client’s file on request “will provide all the material information available because the file is well maintained and complete …” A complete file is what keeps a former client’s questions short.

When a lawyer changes firms

The file follows the client, not the lawyer and not the firm. The National Law Review’s summary of the departure rules puts it bluntly: “A client’s files belong to the client and not to a firm or attorney.”

Two ABA opinions shape the transition:

• Formal Opinion 99-414 (1999) addresses notice. A departing lawyer has a duty to tell clients for whose active matters the lawyer is responsible, and a joint notice from the lawyer and the firm is preferred.
• Formal Opinion 489 (December 2019) addresses the transition itself. The departing lawyer and the firm work together on an orderly and timely transfer of files when a client chooses to follow the lawyer. As the opinion puts it: “Clients are not property.” Firms may ask for advance notice of a departure, but notice requirements cannot be so rigid that they interfere with a client’s choice of counsel.

How long files are kept

No single Model Rule sets a retention period for the client file itself. Trust account records are the clearest case: Model Rule 1.15(a) asks that complete records of trust account funds and other property be preserved for five years after the representation ends (the period sits in brackets, for each jurisdiction to set), and Arizona’s version of the rule asks for the same.

For the rest of the file, the State Bar of Arizona’s guidance is candid that there is no bright-line rule, because each representation is different. Its guidance notes that file-retention policies should be disclosed to the client, preferably in writing at the start of the relationship, and that client-owned materials should not be destroyed without a reasonable effort to return them and reasonable notice. Other jurisdictions set their own terms.

What a portable file means for practice software

The rule speaks of “papers and property.” Most of a modern file lives in software: the matter record, every version of every document, correspondence, the docket and its history. A file that can be surrendered only after an export project is portable in theory and slow in practice.

When the time comes, a firm will want to know whether its software can hand over a file that is:

• Complete, holding everything the client would be entitled to under the firm’s own jurisdiction’s approach.
• Whole, with documents, versions, correspondence and the docket still connected to the matter they belong to.
• Readable, in ordinary formats that open without the vendor’s software.
• Prompt, ready on request rather than after a project.

Marlow keeps every document version and overwrites none. The file Marlow holds leaves whole and portable, surrendered on demand. Which papers a given client is entitled to remains a question for the firm’s lawyers and their jurisdiction’s rules. The terms on which a firm leaves sit beside what Marlow costs and pays.

A firm already running practice software will also want to know what its current system exports today. For a fair walk-through of a parallel run, and of what Clio’s own help center says its export contains, see running new practice software beside Clio. Deadlines are the other half of the record: see what legal docketing is.

Marlow is practice software, not a law firm. It gives no legal advice, and nothing in it can commit past a lawyer’s refusal. To see a matter, its documents and its record in a live sandbox workspace, join the first firms.