An Interview With the Indicted: the Unique Client Perspective

• Publication year: 2017
• Author: By Kevan P. McLaughlin

An Interview with the Indicted: The Unique Client Perspective

By Kevan P. McLaughlin¹

While returning from giving a series of lectures on trading commodities in South Africa and India, Larry R. Williams was whisked off a plane at Sydney airport and thrown into an Australian prison after being indicted for income tax evasion back home. Those and other events, including his trial, are well chronicled in Mr. Williams' book: Confessions of a Radical Tax Protestor. This article does not rehash those events and the tax protestor movement, but offers Mr. William's unique perspective on the criminal tax process, and in particular the tax lawyers who assisted him.

Q: Your book, Confessions of a Radical Tax Protester, goes into great detail about the tax protester movement, your experiences, and more, but one of the events that stuck out to me in particular is how the book opens. Specifically, how you were apprehended in Australia seemingly quite surprised. What was that like, especially because you were represented at the time?

A: We were in negotiations, so to be arrested was a shock and a real wake up call. I was represented at that point, but I also think that was one of the frustrating things for the prosecutor — that I had used a lot of lawyers.

Q: What made you use a lot of lawyers? Were you disappointed with your representation, and what may have made you feel that way?

A: Fees and billing practices. A lot of it came down to fees. At a time I had a meeting, and naturally got a bill. But it turned out that I was billed for time I knew was not spent in the meeting. I see things like that all the time it is very frustrating for me as a client. For example I had another case, unrelated to the tax issues, and the law firm actually billed me for the postage on the bill. That's just crazy. Little nitpicking things like that, I think, drive clients crazy. So a lot of it is just the way lawyers handle their billing, and a client can understandably become upset because they feel nickled-and-dimed on everything. I understand lawyers need to bill and capture their time, but there's a point where it negatively impacts the client relationship.

Also, leading up to my last attorney, it seems like a lot of smoke and mirrors from other lawyers. Perhaps it was because everything was not explained to me, but it seemed like, "Oh we can talk to them, and we'll have a meeting with the IRS, and we can get this resolved [da da da da da]." Well, nothing ever got resolved. Things were very...