417 U.S. 85 (1974)
In 1955 or 1956, Isadore Bellis formed the law firm of Bellis, Kolsby & Wolf in Philadelphia with two other partners.1 The firm employed six additional staff members, including two attorneys, and maintained its financial records in Bellis’s office under the supervision of his secretary acting as bookkeeper and an independent accountant.2 Bellis served as the senior partner until late 1969, when he left to join another firm and the partnership dissolved, although winding up of its affairs continued.3
After leaving, Bellis left the former partnership’s financial records with Kolsby and Wolf at the original premises.4 More than three years later, in February or March 1973, Bellis’s secretary, acting on his or his attorney’s direction, removed the records and brought them to his new office.5 On May 1, 1973, Bellis received a subpoena directing him to appear before a federal grand jury and produce all partnership records for the years 1968 and 1969.6
Bellis appeared on May 9, 1973, but refused to produce the records, asserting his Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination.7 Following a hearing in the District Court on May 9 and 10, the court ruled that the privilege did not apply to the partnership records and ordered their production by May 16.8 Upon his continued refusal before the grand jury, the District Court held Bellis in civil contempt.9
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the contempt finding in a per curiam opinion on July 9, 1973.10 The Supreme Court granted certiorari on October 15, 1973, after staying the mandate, to address the Fifth Amendment issue presented by the subpoena for the partnership records.11
Whether a partner in a small law firm may invoke his personal privilege against self-incrimination to justify his refusal to comply with a subpoena requiring production of the partnership’s financial records?12
The Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination is limited to its historic function of protecting only the natural individual from compulsory incrimination through his own testimony or personal records.13 An individual cannot rely upon the privilege to avoid producing the records of a collective entity which are in his possession in a representative capacity, even if these records might incriminate him personally.14
No. The partnership represented an organized institutional activity because it possessed an established institutional identity independent of its individual partners, having existed for nearly fifteen years as a formal arrangement for the continuing conduct of legal practice under state partnership law that imposed management rights and majority rule, maintained a partnership bank account and letterhead, held itself out as an entity to third parties, employed six staff members including other attorneys, and filed separate federal tax returns.1516 Petitioner held the subpoenaed partnership records in a representative capacity, as the financial books reflected the entire firm’s receipts and disbursements and were subject to the other partners’ statutory rights of access, inspection, and fiduciary accountability under Pennsylvania law.17 Therefore, the personal privilege against compulsory self-incrimination does not apply.18
A partner in a small law firm may not invoke his personal privilege against self-incrimination to justify his refusal to comply with a subpoena requiring production of the partnership’s financial records.19
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Justice Douglas dissented, arguing that the case is clearly controlled by Boyd v. United States.20
He noted that the small three-man law firm had no real existence apart from the three individual attorneys and that the partnership would dissolve automatically upon the death of any member.21
Douglas emphasized that the records are the partner's own in both a legal and practical sense and that the distinction between a solo practice and a partnership should not result in forfeiture of the constitutional right.22