Transcript of the above video: 

I sometimes get a lot of blowback when I make videos about fake lawyers here in Thailand; I don't know why. It seems silly to me because I don't see why people have such a hard time understanding that if you want proper legal advice, you need to go to somebody who is actually qualified to provide that legal advice. As I've talked about in other videos, I am a naturalized Thai; I'm an American Attorney, not a Thai Attorney. I don't appear in Thai Court; I'm an American Attorney with Thai nationality. That said, we have Attorneys here at the firm and we work with tax advisors and CPAs as well here in our firm, so again, the point I'm trying to make is there's the reality, and there's fakes and the problem is the fakes cause all sorts of problems. And in light of all of this crackdown that's happening from law enforcement all the way up to the Army now, is now involved in matters pertaining to these nominee structures and foreigners living in Thailand inappropriately. They are utilizing nominee structures to buy up basically real estate. Now it seems like there is also sorts of arms caches going on.

I think it's important to look at some of the root causes of these things, and one of them is fake foreign lawyers, and by "fake" I mean just outright fakes. I've talked about outright fakes previously. They exist here in Thailand unfortunately, and then there is also the issue of if you were a foreign national, yes, you may be legally qualified in some other jurisdiction, but if you're not Thai, as we have discussed in other videos, it's clearly restricted. Foreign nationals should not be involved in anything having to do with the legal business here in Thailand. And I think one of the root cause problems of all the things that we're seeing now with regard to these crackdowns regarding land holding companies, these crackdowns regarding these complex nominees structures, I'm pretty sure one of the data points that is going to come up in a sort of Venn diagram showing similarities between the problems that they are having throughout the country with this issue, is fake foreign lawyers; foreigners that are directing other foreigners to set up these kind of structures and oftentimes these foreigners, they may have some sort of qualification in some other jurisdiction. Great, for whatever they can actually advise on regarding the jurisdiction of their qualification, fair enough, but again if they are not a Thai national, then you're talking to somebody that frankly shouldn't be doing what they are doing, and they can lead you into problems.

A perfect example of this I was thinking, I thought of it when I read a recent article from Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, the article is titled: A Wake-up call from Koh Phangan: The paradigm shift in Thailand's regulatory enforcement. Quote: "A zero tolerance policy for "Enablers" - Another layer of this crackdown, one that adds significant "density" to the current legal environment, is the focus on Enablers. Professional gatekeepers, including law firms and accounting offices that specialize in "creating" Thai shareholders that are now under the microscope." Well also professional "gatekeepers" including law firms, do they involve a foreigner? Is that person not a Thai national? That's one of the root problems here that I don't think anybody is really taking a serious look at; these are the enablers. If they are a foreign national that claims to be in the legal service business in Thailand - restricted occupations are clear - so from jump street, from the get-go, that person is already acting illegally, so what would make anyone think that they'd have any problem "enabling" somebody to set up something that was otherwise in contravention of Thai Law? 

Quoting further: "The authorities are signaling that those who facilitate Shadow Operations are just as liable as the foreign investors themselves." Well start looking at the fake foreign lawyers and by "fake" even if they have a qualification from some other jurisdiction, if they are in Thailand and they're not Thai - again the restricted occupations are clear - they are by definition "fake". Quoting further: "This Vertical Enforcement ensures that the entire infrastructure supporting nominee structures is being eroded, making it increasingly difficult and dangerous to find intermediaries willing to take the risk." Well I hope that's the case, just as I hope that we get rid of these charlatans from our legal service sector here in Thailand because it's a real problem. 

As I have discussed in other videos, one of the biggest issues associated with truly fake lawyers - I'm not talking about folks that are sort of pretending to be able to do things in Thailand, even though they're clearly restricted from doing so, because they are under the penumbra of their foreign credential, let's put it that way, put those folks aside for a minute - the problem with true frauds, just true fakes who claim to be lawyers and just have no qualification whatsoever, is that you may have no attorney-client privilege; you may have no confidentiality when you are dealing with that person. So if law enforcement ends up dealing with you at some later date, that person could be construed not as an Attorney or a Representative but as a co-conspirator possibly. Again, that's a major problem. 

But long story short, I think you can get to the crux of this "enabling" issue with regard to all of this that's going on, by getting to the crux of "so-called" legal professionals who are clearly unqualified and are acting illegally here in the Kingdom of Thailand.