every single theme and option, it would give me a good excuse to never produce or write anything.
My goal here is to write things and provide documents that may be useful to people searching the internet. One of the biggest problems I’ve had as a lawyer is in finding templates of legal documents. Sure, it’s not hard to find motions and complaints online, but it gets difficult the more specific the type of document or case you’re looking for.
One of the types of documents I searched endlessly for online was a simple subpoena for cell phone records. I always thought lawyers didn’t rely on Google when we needed a template document or other information. I figured Westlaw or Lexis or a firm’s internal database would contain everything we ever needed. Or maybe some firms do have an endless repository of templates. But most probably don’t. So I’ve gone to Google many times when looking for documents that I didn’t have.
It was impossible to locate good, quality cell phone subpoenas. I think this is mainly because they’re not typically filed with the courts unless they’re the subject of a motion and even then they aren’t often filed because they contain information that’s considered private, like phone numbers and addresses. Also attorneys I think tend to be very proprietary in their work-product and don’t want to provide their documents for the internet public. The reasons are obvious. If I provide a subpoena here that anyone can use, what would someone need to hire me for?
Through my searching, I only found a few barebones subpoenas for cell phone records. These aren’t subpoenas I would use because they are extremely general and don’t include a lot of the language which should be included.
I had no trouble finding various “guides” on serving subpoenas for cell phone records which included contact information for where to serve the subpoenas. Here is a screenshot of the first page of Google’s results when searching for cell phone subpoena:
Here are Google’s results when you search for cell phone subpoena template:
Mostly out of necessity then, I had to draft my cell phone subpoenas basically from scratch, relying on bits and pieces of available materials. However, there isn’t just the subpoena. There’s also the “official” subpoena cover page which the federal courts provide, known as AO 88B. And the document drafted by the attorney which is technically called “Notice of Subpoena Duces Tecum….” And in the cell phone subpoenas I’ve done, I included an Excel spreadsheet with the targeted phone numbers and dates. I do this so the court will see you’re not making a sweeping, overbroad request. I wanted to include that spreadsheet with this first post but I had to change the numbers and finally realized if I wait until everything is all put together I might never post anything. I will provide the other documents in the coming days.