Estate Planning: Attorney client privilege, work product doctrine, and IRC Section 7525

Lawrence Hill | Steptoe & Johnson LLP

Larry Hill is a tax partner who co-heads the firm’s tax controversy practice. He is one of the nation’s preeminent tax litigators and first-chair trial lawyers who focuses his practice on the resolution of complex domestic and cross-border civil tax disputes through the IRS administrative process and litigation.

The NY Times has called Larry “a leading member of the American Tax Bar” and “a litigator who is known for aggressively defending clients before the IRS over tax matters.” The Legal 500 refers to Larry as “a superb lawyer and one of the leaders of the tax controversy bar,” Chambers USA praises him as a litigator “who helps develop and communicate the best possible argument,” and The Best Lawyers in America has named Larry “Lawyer of the Year” in 2022, for Litigation and Controversy-Tax.

He represents numerous financial institutions, multinational corporations, international accounting firms, partnerships, private foundations, and high net worth individuals in domestic and international tax-related disputes. He also represents clients in high-profile white-collar investigations, criminal cases, and congressional investigations.

Larry has litigated some of the most significant civil and criminal tax cases in U.S. history. Larry was lead counsel for the sponsor/partner in the seminal taxpayer victory in Cross Refined Coal, LLC v. Commissioner, 45 F.4th 150 (D.C. Cir. 2022), where the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit found that a tax credit partnership was a bona fide partnership for tax purposes and was imbued with economic substance despite the lack of any pre-tax profit potential. Larry represented the American Tax Policy Institute on its amicus brief to the US Supreme Court, in Moore v. U.S., perhaps the most significant tax case in the last fifty years. Additionally, Larry was counsel for the American College of Tax Counsel on their Amicus Brief to the US Supreme Court, in support of Appellant law firm, in the In re Grand Jury case—a landmark attorney-client privilege case.

Prior to joining Steptoe, he served as a senior partner and global head of tax controversy and litigation at several major international law firms, as well as the co-global head of the financial institutions practice at one of those firms. Earlier in his career, Larry was a trial attorney and National Tax Shelter Project Attorney with the Office of Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service and a Special Assistant United States Attorney with the United States Attorney’s Office in Washington, DC. The IRS honored him twice with Special Achievement Awards for his work as a top trial attorney in the country. Larry also previously served as Assistant General Counsel to a “Big Four” accounting firm.

I. Attorney-Client privilege | 2:00pm – 2:15pm

II. Kovel agreements | 2:15pm – 2:30pm

III. Waiver of privilege | 2:30pm – 2:45pm

IV. The work production doctrine and best practices related to same | 2:45pm – 3:00pm