The firm was established in 1968 and has maintained a practice that primarily encompasses legal matters involving closely-held businesses and their owners, with an emphasis on issues involving federal and state taxation.  The firm’s business clients are representative of several industries, including the agriculture, manufacturing, construction, wholesale trade, retail trade and real estate.  In addition, many of the firm’s clients are in the services industry, including physicians and other health care providers, lawyers, accountants, architects and engineers.  Areas of legal practice include tax and business planning for individuals, corporations, partnerships and limited liability companies; mergers and acquisitions; real estate transactional matters (buying, selling, leasing and financing);  estate planning; trust and estate administration; guardianships and conservatorships; charitable planning; and tax controversy.

The firm counsels business clients with respect to business formation, buy/sell agreements, employment contracts, asset and stock acquisitions and sales, mergers, and matters related to private lender and seller-carryback financing, such as recourse/nonrecourse loan documents, chattel security agreements, stock pledges, financing statements and deeds of trust.  The firm has also been actively engaged in real estate matters involving leases, sales, purchases and tax deferred exchanges of improved commercial properties and unimproved land.

The firm counsels individual clients with respect to developing an effective estate plan, ranging from simple wills, durable powers of attorney, medical powers of attorney and living wills to inclusion of more complex entities, such as revocable family trusts, irrevocable trusts, family partnerships and limited liability companies, irrevocable life insurance trusts, and/or charitable remainder trusts.  We further assist our clients in transactional estate planning by facilitating lifetime transfers of assets into the family orientated entities.  The firm is also often engaged to assist with probate and post-death trust administration matters.

In addition, the firm also maintains a tax litigation practice primarily involving federal tax disputes concerning income, estate, and gift tax issues that arise in connection with the audit of tax returns or the collection of an asserted tax liability.  The firm has successfully litigated tax cases in the United States Tax Court, has obtained favorable settlements in tax and tax related cases brought in the United States District Courts, and has represented taxpayers before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.