In the end, I believe that most of the ALIs members guided not by their clients or their own self interests but boldly by the light of reason. To their credit, they did so more recently as well, under Geoffs leadership, when they grappled with the new Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers. They eschewed a narrow, parochial focus on their professional financial interests which would have conflicted with and harmed the public interest. So I believe will this Commission and the American Bar Association. On to tax law and its practitioners.
Tax law is a funny thing.
Especially in smaller communities lawyers retain accountants for their own tax needs and they refer their clients to them. In the past they often did not themselves retain tax lawyers nor refer their clients to them because there were none nearby or, sometimes, because they feared their clients would never return to them from the law firms in which the tax lawyers practiced. Now, of course, their worries are compounded because they fear their clients may not return from the accountants cum lawyers. In the beginning, in 1909 when Congress enacted the corporate income tax and in 1913 when it enacted the individual income tax, accountants had hands-on professional experience with the financial accounting concepts of income, expenses, depreciation, capitalization, cash and accrual basis, and the like. Most lawyers did not.