https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2033&context=law_lawreview
"Item three is a relatively new provision in the Internal Revenue Code, Section 60501. Section 60501 requires every person who receives more than $10,000 in cash in connection with a trade or business to file a re-port with the Internal Revenue Service. The implementing regulationsmake clear that lawyers are engaged in a trade or business for purposes of the reporting requirement. Thus, a lawyer may be required to informthe government hat client X paid a $100,000 fee in cash on the fourth ofJuly. And what if the lawyer has reason to know that some or all of the feeis derived from the client's criminal activity? That brings us to item four. A new federal money laundering statute makes it a crime knowingly to engage in a monetary transaction with a financial institution if the amount of the transaction exceeds $10,000 and the funds are derived from specified criminal activity. Thus, if the lawyer knows that the client's money comes from an illicit source, the lawyer cannot deposit the $100,000 fee in the bank without committing a crime. This money laundering statute provides a useful vehicle for bringing the right to counsel issues more sharply into focus. The constitutional controversy this particular law has generated revolves around the question whether the sixth amendment requires that legitimate attorneys' fees be exempted from its reach.
And what about the sixth amendment? Does the client's sixth amendment right to counsel protect fruits and instrumentalities of crime possessed by the lawyer? No. A lawyer's refusal to accept robbery proceeds as a legal fee will not implicate a suspect's sixth amendment rights, even if the suspect otherwise cannot retain private counsel. The sixth amendment grants the accused an absolute right to have counsel assist in his defense and a qualified right to counsel of his choice. The accused is entitled to employ counsel of choice if he can afford it, or to be represented by appointed counsel if he cannot."
https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-120000-attorney-fee-forfeiture-guidelines
"9-120.104 - Forfeiture of Assets Transferred to an Attorney for Representation in a Criminal Matter
Forfeiture of an asset transferred to an attorney as payment for legal fees for representation in a criminal matter may be pursued, notwithstanding the fact that the asset may have been transferred for legitimate services actually rendered, where there are reasonable grounds to believe that the attorney had actual knowledge that the asset was subject to forfeiture at the time of the transfer. However, such reasonable grounds must be based on facts and information other than compelled disclosures of confidential communications made during the course of the representation."
So, What I am getting from this is that Backpage only has to give up it's assets that have been given to a lawyer if they have no other way of showing their income. If the lawyer can say they had no reason to believe their clients were involved in criminal activity than the retainer fee is protected by the 6th amendment right to counsel. Backpage can say they made plenty of money via advertisement and fees. The fact that this money was seized says in my opinion that Perkins Coie may be in the process of being co-indicted with backpage as co-conspritators in an ongoing criminal enterprise. At the very least I think it says that Perkins Coie KNEW Backpage was making their money
illicitly