“Have tape recorder, will travel” – it might almost be stamped on the calling card of the qualitative social scientist. The open-ended interview, distinguished from a survey with “closed” questions requiring a person to choose an answer, is one of the most powerful tools in Law and Society research. Interviewing has a lot to offer, including the ability to tailor questions to small but potentially important differences among research subjects and to probe interesting avenues that are discovered along the way. Interviewing also allows one to discover worlds that may forever be closed to direct observation, allowing one to hear people report their perspectives and describe their behavior.

Successful qualitative interviewing requires a degree of preparation that allows the researcher to explore, conversationally, topics of core concern. Yet researchers who remain open to pursuing new avenues that serendipitously arise in interviews can discover whole new worlds. For more than two decades, Doreen McBarnet has used extensive interviewing to capture how law and business work in action, understood through the details of complex banking, securities, tax, and bankruptcy transactions. Focusing on corporate tax practices in the United Kingdom, “Whiter than White Collar Crime” reveals the kinds of discoveries one can make when successfully balancing detailed preparation with curiosity.

The complex arenas of corporate law, such as the one discussed in this article, remain ripe for exploration by Law and Society scholars. The trail of inquiry brought McBarnet down the road less traveled after the publication of Conviction: Law, the State and the Construction of Justice (1981), a well-regarded study in the criminological tradition.