Money from wherever, so long as it s money for them , of course. And they want to control the revenue flow by subordinating your and my client services to their bottom-line needs. They want us to work for them. They want to control our service to their clients, irrespective of the fact that that is not what lawyers are about or what our society expects of our legal profession. Our clients obviously expect us to be solely responsible to them as we always have been and must always be.
Accountants have no such values that are similarly directed.
To the extent that their services are at all subject to their own code, their independence is directed away from their clients and toward the public. Unlike us, at least in their auditing function, their loyalty must necessarily be to the public, not to their clients. Unlike us, they have no immunity from the obligation not to divulge their clients confidences and secrets even when required by the court, especially when they act in their ancillary capacity as merely business consultants and advisors to their clients. Accountants are not subject to our codes of professional responsibility, except to the extent that they may be employees of law firms with the same obligations of confidentiality to which all other attorneys employees and their lawyer employers are subject. Nor do accountants want to be subject to our codes.