Tax, Employee Benefits and Trusts & Estates

This group is comprised of highly-experienced attorneys who are divided into three distinct and specialized teams.  (Sheppard Mullin's three-headed monster, if you will.)

The Tax Team gives clients advice on how to structure transactions so as to optimize treatment under federal and state tax laws.  Our tax attorneys also team up with lawyers from other transactional practice groups to assist in the tax aspects of negotiation and documentation of business and finance transactions.

Employee Benefits attorneys advise companies about their obligations under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA"), and the technical rules applicable to employee benefits under the Internal Revenue Code.  (Confused yet?)  These benefits specialists frequently work with lawyers in the Labor & Employment and Corporate practice groups to address ERISA-related issues that arise in employment matters and mergers and acquisitions.  (In fact, Sheppard Mullin utilizes this cross-disciplinary approach in lots of practice settings, to enhance the skill sets of its professionals and to cultivate a highly challenging and stimulating work environment.  Cool, huh?)

The Trusts & Estates Team represents clients in all aspects of estate planning, complex trust and estate administration, and fiduciary litigation. These attorneys provide legal counsel, ranging from developing a basic estate plan involving wills and revocable trusts to designing more sophisticated plans for the transfer of family wealth to younger generations and charities. Our clients include individuals, families, nonprofit organizations and corporate fiduciaries.