Justice accuses Jenkens & Gilchrist of participating in a fraud

The NY Times reports here today that the Dallas-based law firm Jenkens & Gilchrist is the subject of a Justice Department motion in federal court that seeks to require the firm to disclose the identities of its clients who were sold abusive tax shelters. The government is contending that Jenkens & Gilchrist participated in fraud and should not be allowed to hide the identities of its tax-shelter clients from the Internal Revenue Service. The so-called crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege is most often applied to lawyers who represent organized-crime families and drug rings suspected of racketeering, not to tax lawyers suspected of civil or criminal tax fraud. The I.R.S. issued 25 summonses for the names of Jenkens & Gilchrist clients and other information, the firm refused to comply with any of the summons, and now the Justice Department is seeking an order to enforce the summons.

Leave a Reply