Seyfarth Shaw beefs up its Trust & Estates team in LA

Seyfarth Shaw LLP, one of America’s leading full-service law firms, has announced that the firm’s Los Angeles office has further deepened its Business Services Group with the addition of a team of five trusts and estates attorneys.

[private]Alan T. Yoshitake, who leads the team, joins the firm as a partner in the Trusts & Estates Practice Group. Yoshitake is joined by Mark T. Hansen and Edward J. McCaffery, Of Counsel. Two associates will also be joining the group. All of the attorneys were previously practicing in the Los Angeles office of Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal LLP.

“The addition of our new colleagues in Los Angeles complements the strong business services practices we have built across the country, and further broadens our Trusts & Estates Practice Group in Los Angeles,” said Edward J. Karlin, Chair of Seyfarth Shaw’s Business Services Group. “Alan and his team are nationally recognized in estate planning and in the arena of estate litigation. We are thrilled to have them on board.”

Alan T. Yoshitake (Partner) focuses on tax issues involving sophisticated estate planning, charitable organization, business and financial planning, privately owned business and income tax planning for individuals. During his years of practice in the Los Angeles area, he has provided advice regarding sophisticated planning techniques including estate and wealth transfers, charitable gift planning, private foundation and charitable entity creation and organization, management and shareholder relationships in closely held businesses, business ownership arrangements for succeeding generation of family owners, retirement income tax planning and complex fiduciary income tax matters, as well as business tax, estate tax and probate administration. Combined with his sophisticated planning practice, Yoshitake extensively litigates and has served as an expert witness over the same areas of law. He is regularly in Court removing and defending fiduciaries, resolving disputes between trustees and beneficiaries and protecting the elderly from being financially abused. He also practices in the area of federal, state and local taxation and represents clients before the Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Tax Court, the California State Board of Equalization and the California Franchise Tax Board. Yoshitake earned his B.S. from the University of Southern California; his J.D. from Southwestern University Law School; and his LL.M. in Taxation from the New York University School of Law. He is admitted to the state bars of California and Hawaii, the United States Supreme Court, the United States District Court, the United States Tax Court, the California Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of Hawaii.

Mark T. Hansen (Of Counsel) has a broad range of litigation experience covering trusts and estates disputes, complex commercial disputes, breach of contract actions, products liability suits, lender liability cases, intellectual property actions, government contract suits, and wrongful termination actions. He has conducted or supervised cases in state and federal courts throughout the country, and has represented a wide variety of clients. In recent years, Hansen has handled a considerable number of cases involving alleged breaches of fiduciary duties and probate related issues. In addition, he has successfully arbitrated a wide variety of cases in recent years, and he has been involved in the use of other alternative dispute resolution techniques, including mediation. Hansen received his B.S. in Economics from Santa Clara University and his J.D. from the University of California Hastings College of the Law. He is a member of the American Bar Association’s Torts and Insurance Practice Section, the California State Bar Association’s Litigation Section, the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Litigation Section, and the Association of Business Trial Lawyers. He is admitted to practice law in California.

Edward J. McCaffery (Of Counsel) practices in the areas of trusts and estates, taxation and intellectual property. In addition to his practice, he is also the former Dean and Carl Mason Franklin Chair in Law at the University of Southern California School of Law, where he teaches classes in income taxation, property, corporate tax and partnership tax. From 1995 to 2006, McCaffery was also a Visiting Professor of Law and Economics at the California Institute of Technology, teaching public finance and law, law and economics, and law and technology (including intellectual property law). He served as chairman of the planning committee for the prestigious annual USC Institute on Federal Taxation from 1997 until 2006; he was the founder of the USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics, and chair of the Program for Law & Technology at Caltech and Loyola Law School. He is a member of the planning committee for the newly formed Institute on Intellectual Property Law at USC Law School. He has been a visiting professor at UCLA School of Law and Yale Law School. McCaffery initiated a Law & Technology program at the California Institute of Technology, where he has taught the course in intellectual property, which centers on the patent system. He is also a charter member of the USC Intellectual Property Institute, the leading continuing education forum for intellectual property practitioners in Southern California. McCaffery serves on the Patent Prosecution Subcommittee of the Institute. He has written or co-authored several books and numerous articles, testified before Congress, and made many scholarly presentations and public lectures. McCaffery earned his B.A. (summa cum laude) from Yale College; his J.D. (magna cum laude) from Harvard Law School; and his M.A. in Economic from the University of Southern California. Following graduation from law school, McCaffery was law clerk for Chief Justice Robert N. Wilentz of the Supreme Court of New Jersey and practiced with a San Francisco law firm. He is a member of the American Law Institute, National Tax Association, American Economic Association, American Law & Economics Association, and an elected Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel (ACTC). He is admitted to practice law in California.[/private]