It’s been three years and more since I last quoted the ancient Japanese proverb: “The word once spoken, not even the Emperor’s horsemen can return” in this my blog. But I used it just the other day, responding to an appeal from a petitioner whose case I’d blogged nearly three (count ’em, three) months ago. He found that his case had brought him notoriety in the trade press and blogosphere before he stumbled upon my humble effort. He’d asked the more prominent tax journalists to temper their previous blasts to the shorn lamb and hoped I would do likewise.

I did, a little, but quoted the above-cited aforementioned wisdom. Or as we Westerners put it, ya can’t unring a bell.

That set me to wondering. How many practitioners put in their Tax Court litigation engagement (or retainer) agreements that all proceedings are public, with the very circumscribed Section 7461, Section 6103, Rule 27, and Rule 345 exceptions? How many such agreements do not state that counsel has no control over what the Court may make public or what the trade press/blogosphere/lurkers/random commentators may say or publish, or the effects thereof? And the clients should consider before the proceeding is commenced that there may be presently unforeseeable effects from the public nature of such a proceeding?

Sometimes the failing of the Emperor’s horsemen can have a worse effect than the hoofprint of the Boss Hoss.