Legal Opinion

In this chapter, Clair Quentin documents how Queen’s Counsel can, in effect, supply deliberately false legal opinions to elite and corporate clients seeking tax savings. The authority of these opinions rests on claims to status in the United Kingdom legal market and the enactment of norms of distinction that fortify the privileged market position of this small coterie of barristers. This is a combination of a market and relational wealth chains. There is an open market for legal opinion for the deep-pocketed that is entwined with a relational wealth chain based on strong trust–status networks. Clients and suppliers are shown to be engaged in a form of “risk-mining,” with the magnitude of resulting tax savings a function of how far the client and supplier are willing to walk up the high wire of risk and return.