Alice Abreu
Professor of Law, Temple University Beasley School of Law
Professor Alice G. Abreu specializes in federal income tax law, with a special emphasis in the formulation of tax policy. Before joining Temple Law School, she clerked for Judge Edward N. Cahn in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and practiced tax law with Dechert LLP in Philadelphia.
Professor Abreu is nationally known for her ability to make students understand and care about the tax system. She is a recipient of the 2017 Great Teacher Award from Temple University, the 2013 Murray F. Shusterman Award for excellence in teaching from the Temple Law Alumni Association, and the 2007 University Lindback award for distinguished teaching. She has been a visiting professor at a number of institutions, including the Harvard Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and has taught Corporate Tax at the Yale Law School. She has been quoted in the tax column of the Wall Street Journal, has served as Secretary and Vice Chair, Publications, of the Tax Section of the American Bar Association, and is a frequent speaker at national and regional tax conferences.
Frank Agostino
Agostino & Associates
Frank Agostino is the president of Agostino & Associates, P.C., a law firm in Hackensack, New Jersey specializing in civil and white collar criminal litigation, tax controversies and tax planning.
Prior to entering private practice, Mr. Agostino was an attorney with the Internal Revenue Service’s District Counsel in Springfield, Illinois and Newark, New Jersey. He also served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney, where he prosecuted primarily criminal tax cases.
As an adjunct professor, Mr. Agostino taught tax controversy at Rutgers School of Law and served as the co-director of the Rutgers Federal Tax Law Clinic.
Mr. Agostino is a frequent speaker and author on tax controversy and litigation matters. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Journal of Tax Practice and Procedure. Mr. Agostino is actively involved with the American Bar Association and the New York County Lawyers’ Association.
Mr. Agostino is also the President of the Taxpayers Assistance Corp., which provides tax and legal advice to low income taxpayers in the NY/NJ area.
Marlene Barnhart
Chief, Department of the Treasury, Conference and Appeals Branch, Office of Counsel Services
Marlene began her career with the New Jersey Division of Taxation 23 years ago as a Field Auditor and has been with the Conference and Appeals Branch for 21 years. Prior to being appointed to Chief in November of 2013, Marlene supervised the Sales and Use Tax Team and was a Liaison with the Attorney General’s Office in defending the Director of Taxation in Tax Court. Marlene holds degrees in accounting and mortuary sciences.
Leslie Book
Professor of Law, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Leslie Book has written extensively on tax procedure, tax administration and issues affecting the low-income taxpayer community. He is the cofounder and one of the primary bloggers at Procedurally Taxing. He is also the successor author for the Thomson Reuters treatise IRS Practice and Procedure, originally authored by his former colleague, the late Michael Saltzman. Book, a frequent speaker and panelist at bar associations and public interest organizations, has testified before Congress and the IRS on the fair administration of our nation’s tax laws and on the future of tax administration. He is the 2007 ABA Tax Section Spragens Pro Bono Award winner for his outstanding and sustained commitment to pro bono services with respect to federal tax law, is a fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel, and former Director of both the Villanova Low Income Taxpayer Clinic and Villanova Graduate Tax Program.
Eunkyong Choi
New York City Taxpayer Advocate
Eunkyong Choi joined the New York City Department of Finance to head the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate in June 2016. She has extensive experience as a tax controversy attorney. Before joining city government, she served as a Lecturer in Law and acted as Supervising Attorney for the Washington University School of Law overseeing the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic in St. Louis, Missouri. There, she represented low-income taxpayers in state and federal administrative and proceedings including the IRS and the U.S. Tax Court. Prior to her appointment in St. Louis, she served as the Program Director and Supervising Attorney for the Nevada Legal Services Low Income Taxpayer Program.
In addition to her advocacy on behalf of low-income taxpayers, Ms. Choi has served in numerous tax leadership and mentorship roles. She served as a member of the IRS Advisory Council (“IRSAC”) from 2015 to 2017. The IRSAC provides an organized public forum for IRS officials and representatives of the public to discuss key tax administration issues and provides the IRS Commissioner and division leadership with important feedback, observations, and recommendations. Ms. Choi is also a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel (ACTC), a not-for-profit professional association of tax lawyers who are recognized for their excellence in tax practice and professional achievements, and for their dedication to improving the practice of tax law. Fellows are nominated by their peers for this honor and must satisfy the established criteria and pass a rigorous screening process before becoming a Fellow.
Ms. Choi is also a co-founder and member of the Asian American Advocacy Clinic (“AAAC”) in Las Vegas, Nevada, the first and only Asian and Pacific Islander legal aid organization in Nevada.
Ms. Choi holds an LL.M. in Taxation and J.D. from Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, Missouri.
Michelle Drumbl
Clinical Professor of Law and Director, Tax Clinic, Washington & Lee Law
Michelle Lyon Drumbl is the Director of the Tax Clinic and Clinical Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University. Her teaching and research interests focus on federal income taxation of individuals, tax procedure, and tax policy.
As Director of the Tax Clinic, Professor Drumbl oversees students as they provide pro bono representation for low-income taxpayers who have post-filing controversies with the Internal Revenue Service, educate taxpayers about their tax rights and responsibilities, and engage in tax policy advocacy. Under Professor Drumbl’s supervision, clinic students represent clients before the IRS in examinations, collections, appeals, and a variety of other matters. The Tax Clinic also represents clients in deficiency cases in U.S. Tax Court and tax refund litigation in Federal District Court. Since 2008, the Tax Clinic has been awarded more than $500,000 in federal funds from the Internal Revenue Service’s Low Income Taxpayer Clinic grant program.
Professor Drumbl’s scholarship focuses on the intersection of low-income taxpayers and fiscal policy, exploring such issues as filing status, innocent spouse relief, and return preparer fraud. Her current work in progress, “Improving Tax Credits for the Working Poor,” is under contract with Cambridge University Press and examines the administration of refundable credits though the Internal Revenue Code. Her articles have appeared or are forthcoming in Tax Notes, the Florida Tax Review, the Columbia Journal of Tax Law, the Pittsburgh Tax Review, and the eJournal of Tax Research. Her recent article examining the nature and nuance of earned income tax credit noncompliance, Beyond Polemics: Poverty, Taxes, and Noncompliance, was awarded the Cedric Sandford Medal for best paper at the 12th International Conference on Tax Administration in Sydney.
Professor Drumbl also contributed as a chapter author for the American Bar Association’s practitioner reference book, Effectively Representing Your Client Before the IRS, and co-authored Skills & Values: Federal Income Taxation (LexisNexis, 2011).
Professor Drumbl received an LL.M. in Taxation from New York University, a J.D. with honors from George Washington University, and a B.A. in Political Science from Emory University. Prior to the joining the faculty, Professor Drumbl was an attorney at the IRS Office of Chief Counsel, where her work focused on the legal interpretation of bilateral income tax treaties and other cross-border taxation issues for the U.S. government. Her prior private practice experience includes tax controversy work and tax planning. She is a member of the bar in Virginia and Arkansas.
Peter Faber
Partner, McDermott Will & Emery LLP
Peter L. Faber is a partner in the New York office of the law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery LLP. He specializes in state and local tax matters, including planning, administrative proceedings, and litigation.
Mr. Faber’s state and local tax practice has included tax planning for corporate acquisitions, divestitures, and restructurings; combined report planning; electronic commerce and nexus issues; cloud computing issues; residence matters; alternative apportionment issues; and a variety of other matters. He has litigated many cases before state and local administrative agencies and courts and has represented taxpayers at all levels of the administrative controversy and ruling process, including Attorney General investigations and False Claims Act proceedings. He has also represented companies and industry groups in legislative and regulatory matters.
Mr. Faber has served as Chairman of the American Bar Association Section of Taxation and is a member of the Section’s Committee on State and Local Taxes. He is a former Chairman of the New York State Bar Association Tax Section. Mr. Faber has served as a member of the Governor’s Council on Fiscal and Economic Priorities and as Chairman of the New York City Partnership’s Committee on Taxation and Public Revenue. He has served on the New York State Tax Reform Commission, the Governor’s Temporary Commission to Review the New York Sales and Use Tax Laws, and the New York State Legislature’s Tax Study Commission’s Policy Advisory Group. He currently serves as a member of the Advisory Committees of the New York City Tax Appeals Tribunal and the New York City Department of Finance.
Mr. Faber graduated from Swarthmore College with high honors and from Harvard Law School, cum laude.
T. Keith Fogg
Clinical Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Professor Fogg directs the Federal Tax Clinic at the Legal Services Center where he serves as a clinical professor of law. He joined the Harvard faculty in 2017 after teaching at Villanova Law School for a decade. He got the tax clinic at Harvard off the ground in 2015 and 2016 while serving as a visiting professor. Prior to teaching at Villanova he worked for over 30 years with the Office of Chief Counsel, IRS. Professor Fogg received his B.A. from the College of William and Mary, his J.D. from the University of Richmond T.C. Williams School of Law and his M.L.T. in tax from the College of William and Mary Marshall Wythe School of Law. He developed a course for the Georgetown LLM program, Federal Taxation of Bankruptcy and Workouts, which he taught there for 15 years as an adjunct. He has also taught as an adjunct professor at William and Mary and University of Richmond law schools and as a visiting professor at University of Arizona. He is a national authority on tax procedure especially in the area of collection and bankruptcy law as it relates to tax. He co-authors a blog with Professor Les Book, procedurallytaxing.com, which focuses on current tax procedure issues. Fogg served as the editor of the ABA Tax Section publication “Effectively Representing Your Client before the IRS” for the 5th, 6th and 7th Editions. He authors the collection chapters in “IRS Practice and Procedure” created by Michael Saltzman and currently edited by Les Book. He was chosen as the IRS Chief Counsel Robert H. Jackson National Attorney of the Year in 2007 and the ABA Tax Section Janet R. Spragens Pro Bono Award winner in 2015. He is a past chair of the ABA Tax Section Pro Bono and Tax Clinics Committee a past council member of the Section and will begin a term as Vice-Chair for publications in August 2018.
Thomas Gohsler
Acting Chief Counsel, Pennsylvania Dept. of Revenue
Tom Gohsler was appointed Acting Chief Counsel for the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue in July 2017. Prior to his appointment, he served as Deputy Chief Counsel for Revenue from 2011 through 2017, supervising five attorneys that provide litigation and legal support services in the areas of inheritance tax, gaming matters, personnel, and agency transactional and procurement work. Additionally, Mr. Gohsler served as counsel for the Pennsylvania Lottery during that time.
Prior to his appointment as Deputy Chief Counsel, he worked as counsel for Revenue from 1999 through 2011 and handled areas that included inheritance tax, sales and use tax, and Lottery. Mr. Gohsler frequently speaks before county bar associations and various practice groups concerning issues related to tax and estate planning matters.
Mr. Gohsler received his undergraduate degree from the University of Scranton and his juris doctor from the Dickinson School of Law.
Richard Greenstein
Professor of Law, Temple University Beasley School of Law
Professor Richard Greenstein teaches in the fields of criminal law, jurisprudence, federal court jurisdiction, conflict of laws, and ethics. His published scholarship focuses primarily on Jurisprudence, and he has presented papers on the philosophy of law before the American Philosophical Association, of which he is a member. Professor Greenstein is currently working on a series of articles exploring the jurisprudence of Tax Law with Professor Alice Abreu.
Following law school, Professor Greenstein was both managing and staff attorney at the Atlanta Legal Aid Society in Atlanta, Georgia. He taught at Georgia State University’s College of Law from 1982 to 1985, when he joined the Temple faculty. From 1996 to 1999, Professor Greenstein was the Peter J. Liacouras Professor of Law.
Kristin Hickman
Professor, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Kristin E. Hickman is a leading authority in the fields of tax administration and administrative law. Her articles on these topics have appeared in the Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Duke Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, and Vanderbilt Law Review, among other publications. She co-authors the Administrative Law Treatise and a casebook on federal administrative law with Richard J. Pierce, Jr. Professor Hickman’s article, Chevron’s Domain (co-authored with Thomas W. Merrill), was cited by the United States Supreme Court in United States v. Mead Corp.(2001), and by the dissent in City of Arlington v. FCC (2013), and her work is cited regularly in judicial opinions and court briefs. She is one of forty public members of the Administrative Conference of the United States and a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.
Professor Hickman joined the Law School in 2004. She held the Law School’s Julius E. Davis Chair in Law in 2010-11, was the Donald C. Alexander Visiting Professor in Tax Law at Harvard Law School for the 2012-13 academic year, and also taught at Northwestern University School of Law as a Visiting Assistant Professor in 2003-04. She was the Stanley V. Kinyon Tenured Teacher of the Year for the 2016-17 academic year.
Professor Hickman received her B.S. degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting and a second major in history from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. After practicing for several years as a certified public accountant, she earned her J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from Northwestern University School of Law, where she was awarded the Raoul Berger Prize and the Lowden-Wigmore Prize. Following law school, Professor Hickman clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and practiced law as an associate with the Chicago office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, concentrating on corporate and international tax transactions and matters.
Leandra Lederman
Professor, Indiana University of Mauer School of Law
Leandra Lederman is the William W. Oliver Professor of Tax Law and Director of the Tax Program at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, where she teaches Federal Income Tax, Corporate Tax, Tax Procedure, and Tax Policy Colloquium. Professor Lederman is one of the most frequently cited U.S. tax scholars, according to Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports. She has written numerous articles on law and policy issues in the areas of federal income tax (individual and corporate); tax controversies; and tax administration, including two articles on taxpayer rights published in Tax Notes in the year 2000. She also co-authors with Stephen W. Mazza (Dean of Kansas Law School), the Tax Controversies: Practice and Procedure casebook and Teacher’s Manual, the 4th edition of which was published in 2018.
Jennifer Lee
Associate Clinical Professor of Law, Temple University Beasley School of Law
Jennifer Lee directs the Social Justice Lawyering Clinic at the Sheller Center for Social Justice, where she works with law students to represent individuals and organizations on critical issues affecting low-income individuals in the region, with a particular focus on low-wage workers and immigrants. The clinic docket consists of employment cases at all stages of proceedings before the state and federal courts and the representation of grassroots organizations, legal nonprofits, and other entities involved in policy and legislative reform efforts, media advocacy, and community education. In conjunction with such partners, the clinic has worked on issues such as family detention, language access in the state court system, and temp workers. She received the Crystal Eastman Award for her clinic’s work on wage theft, including for the report Shortchanged, which exposes the problem of wage theft in Pennsylvania.
Lee’s scholarship focuses on low-wage workers, with a special interest in the ways that immigration status intersects employment and labor rights. Her recent publications have examined immigrant workers and their legal rights, social mobilization, and participation in temporary visa programs for low-wage workers. Lee visited at the Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City as a Fulbright-García Robles Fulbright Scholar to work on issues confronting temporary visa workers and comparative child migrant detention policies and practices.
Prior to joining the Temple faculty, Lee was a farm worker attorney in Colorado and North Carolina, where she represented farm workers in wage and hour, civil rights, human trafficking, and immigration cases. For her work, Lee and her colleagues were awarded the Paul & Sheila Wellstone Award to Combat Human Trafficking and the Cesar Chavez Organizational Leadership Award. Earlier in her career she was a visiting clinical professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Colorado, a Clifton Everett Fellow at Legal Aid of North Carolina, and a Staff Attorney at South Brooklyn Legal Services. Lee clerked for the Hon. Franklin Van Antwerpen in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania following her graduation from law school.
Gregory Mandel
Dean, Temple University Beasley School of Law
Gregory N. Mandel is the Dean and Peter J. Liacouras Professor of Law at Temple Law School. He is a leading international scholar on intellectual property law, innovation, and the interface among technology and law. Dean Mandel’s publications have been selected as among the best intellectual property and patent law articles of the year three times. His article Patently Non-Obvious was identified as one of the most cited patent law articles of the past decade, and his experimental studies have been cited by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and in briefs filed before the United States Supreme Court.
Dean Mandel was awarded a prestigious three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct a series of experiments on the psychology of intellectual property in the United States and China. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Intellectual Property Section of the American Association of Law Schools, an American Bar Association task force to brief the Environmental Protection Agency on arising nanotechnology legal issues, and is the recipient of a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant to teach U.S. intellectual property law to foreign law students. Dean Mandel is the author of over fifty scholarly publications and has given more than 150 presentations, including for the United Nations, Second Circuit and Federal Circuit, Patent and Trademark Office, European Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, American Bar Association, American Psychology Association, and National Academy of Science.
Dean Mandel was President of the Board of The Miquon School from 2013-2015 and on the Board for six years. His pro bono legal work includes a prominent asylum case before the Attorney General of the United States and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Dean Mandel served as the law school’s Associate Dean for Research from 2009-2016 and was Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Law at Albany Law School prior to joining Temple. Before entering academia, he practiced law with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, clerked for Judge Jerome Farris, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and interned with Chief Judge Anthony J. Scirica, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Dean Mandel received his J.D. from Stanford Law School and his bachelor’s degree in physics and astronomy from Wesleyan University. He worked on NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope prior to attending law school. Dean Mandel has taught Introduction to Intellectual Property, Patent Law, Advanced Patent Law, Introduction to Transactional Skills, and Property.
Andrea Monroe (Moderating)
Professor, Temple University Beasley School of Law
Professor Andrea Monroe teaches Taxation, Taxation II, Taxation of Partnerships and S Corporations, and Business Basics for Lawyers. She earned her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and her LL.M. in Taxation from New York University. Prof. Monroe previously taught at Northwestern University School of Law as a visiting assistant professor. Professor Monroe’s current research focuses on partnership taxation.
Following law school, Professor Monroe worked at the law firms of Winston & Strawn in Chicago and New York and Foley & Lardner in Milwaukee, where her practice included leveraged leasing, alternative energy transactions and other forms of tax-advantaged financing.
Catherine “Cat” Martin, Esq.
Philadelphia Community Legal Services, Philadelphia Property Tax Foreclosure Program
“Cat” Martin is the Co-Director of the Tax Team at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia. She is also the 2017–19 ABA Section of Taxation Christine A. Brunswick Public Interest Fellow. Ms. Martin joined the Homeownership and Consumer Unit at Community Legal Services in 2015 as the Powell Fellow in Legal Services awarded by the University of Virginia. Her practice area focuses on assisting low-income Philadelphians facing tax foreclosure to preserve their homes, which is often their only asset. She has also worked closely with the City of Philadelphia and others to draft regulations and improve court procedures that better protect homeowners. In addition to being a principal author of The Philadelphia Property Tax Handbook, she is a contributing author to the Urban Affairs Coalition’s Foreclosure Prevention Resource Guide. Ms. Martin received her Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2015, and while there served as the Virginia Journal of International Law’s Managing Editor of Publication. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts.
Nina Olson
National Taxpayer Advocate
Nina E. Olson, National Taxpayer Advocate, leads the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an
independent organization within the Internal Revenue Service. Ms. Olson is the voice of the
taxpayer at the IRS and before Congress. Under her leadership, the Taxpayer Advocate Service
helps taxpayers resolve problems with the IRS and addresses systemic issues affecting groups of
taxpayers. Her Annual Report to Congress identifies the most serious problems facing taxpayers
and recommends solutions. In 2015, Congress codified the provisions of the Taxpayer Bill of
Rights for which Ms. Olson had long advocated. She convened the first International Conference
on Taxpayer Rights in 2015 in Washington, D.C., followed by conferences in Vienna and
Amsterdam. In 2018, Accounting Today magazine listed Ms. Olson in the Top 100 Most
Influential People in Accounting. In 2017, she received the American Bar Association Section of
Taxation’s Distinguished Service Award and the Jules Ritholz Memorial Merit Award for
outstanding dedication, achievement, and integrity in the field of civil and criminal tax
controversies. Tax Analysts honored Nina Olson as one of ten outstanding women in tax from
over 300 nominations in 2016. Ms. Olson is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and North
Carolina Central School of Law, and she holds a Master of Laws degree in taxation from
Georgetown University Law Center.
Len Rieser (Moderating)
Program Coordinator, Sheller Center for Social Justice
Len Rieser is Program Coordinator for the Sheller Center for Social Justice at Temple University Beasley School of Law, where he also teaches courses in Access to Justice and Education Law. Previously, he served as staff attorney, Co-Director, and Executive Director of the Education Law Center of Pennsylvania, a public-interest law firm dedicated to promoting access and equity in Pennsylvania’s public education system. Len has worked in collaboration with many of Philadelphia’s public-interest law organizations, and is a participant in the Delivery of Legal Services Committee of the Public Interest Section of the Philadelphia Bar Association. Before coming to Philadelphia, Len worked as a trial attorney in the U. S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School.
Christine Speidel
Professor, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Christine Speidel directs the Federal Tax Clinic. In the Clinic, she teaches students to practice law by representing needy members of Villanova’s neighboring communities in federal tax disputes. Professor Speidel frequently speaks and writes on issues affecting low-income taxpayers, particularly related to health care reform. Her research interests lie in the intersection of poverty law with tax law and tax procedure. Professor Speidel is a contributor to the Procedurally Taxing blog and an editor of the practice manual Effectively Representing Your Client Before the IRS. Speidel is active in the American Bar Association Section of Taxation, and she is the immediate past chair of the Section’s Pro Bono and Tax Clinics Committee.
Prior to her appointment at Villanova, Professor Speidel practiced law at Vermont Legal Aid. She directed the Vermont Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic and was a staff attorney for Vermont Legal Aid’s Office of the Health Care Advocate as well as the Poverty Law Project. She represented low-income individuals in tax, health care, domestic violence, and public benefits matters, and also advocated for systemic policy changes.
Anna Tavis
Brooklyn Legal Services LITC
Anna C. Tavis is a staff attorney in the Workers’ Rights and Benefits Unit at Brooklyn Legal Services. She joined the practice in 2011 as a Brunswick Public Service Fellow through the ABA Section of Taxation. Anna represents low-income taxpayers in controversies before the IRS and New York State, with a particular focus on issues affecting immigrant workers. Anna partners with community-based organizations in providing education and outreach to low-income taxpayers throughout Brooklyn. She also handles unemployment cases and represents workers in wage and hour claims in Federal District Court. Anna earned her JD from Boston College Law School, where she was a Public Service Scholar and a Note Editor on the Law Review. Anna is fluent in Russian and Spanish.
Valerie Vlasenko
Agostino & Associates
Valerie Vlasenko, Esq. is a tax controversy and litigation associate at Agostino & Associates, P.C. She represents individuals and corporate taxpayers at all stages of tax controversies, including audits, before the IRS Office of Appeals, and in litigation before the U.S. Tax Court, District Courts, and Courts of Appeals. Prior to joining the firm she clerked for the New Jersey Tax Court, where she drafted judicial opinions adjudicating state and local tax matters. She is a graduate of Seton Hall University School of Law, where she was a director of the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program. She is licensed to practice in New Jersey and New York.
Stewart Weintraub (Moderating)
S.A.L.T. Practice Chair, Chamberlain Hrdlicka Law Firm
Mr. Weintraub’s practice has centered on taxation for more than 40 years. He helps clients plan and structure transactions so that all state and local tax obligations are minimized. He represents clients in all aspects of state and local tax compliance and litigation, from audits through trials and appeals to the appellate courts. Before entering private practice, he was Chief of Tax Litigation for the City of Philadelphia’s Law Department, during which he also served as Chief Counsel of the Mayor’s Tax Reform Commission. In 2003, he was appointed to serve as a member of the new Tax Reform Commission created by the Home Rule Charter.