It looks like we're missing some of the relevant code  here. For
example, I don't see anything about the history of "llnlList". Could you
provide a larger sample?

First I apologize that I've overlooked your kind response. I thought there was
no response from anyone and had moved on to using other list  methods.

The code  should read:
MyWebReference.Lists myList =newMyWebReference.Lists();
myList.Credentials =newSystem.Net. NetworkCredentia l("theUser" ,"passwd"
,"myDomain" );
myList.Url ="https://remoteServe r/_vti_bin/ lists.asmx";
XmlNode listCollection =myList.GetListColl ection();

I finally gave up and used the following code instead:

SPWeb myWeb = SPControl.GetContextWeb(Context);

SPList myList = myWeb.Lists["listName"];

No problem; thanks for the follow-up. The new way is much more concise
and should serve you well as long as your code  is on the SharePoint server.