Los Angeles, CA (February 2, 2012) – Venable LLP has announced that Stephanie Zaffos has joined the firm’s Los Angeles office as Of Counsel in the Tax and Wealth Planning practice group. She has over 10 years of experience working in accounting and legal industries assisting entrepreneurs and private business owners in real estate, media and entertainment and sports related matters.
Previously, Ms. Zaffos had been a Senior Associate in the Los Angeles office of Proskauer Rose. She advises clients in all phases of estate planning, including trust administration, gift and generation-skipping tax planning, and charitable planned giving. Ms. Zaffos has extensive experience handling a variety of complex estate planning issues, such as transfer tax and Qualified Subchapter S Trusts (QSST), and Electing Small Business Trusts (ESBT) elections.
“Stephanie is a great addition to our experienced team which has quickly become one of the top local Tax and Wealth Planning practices,” says Douglas Emhoff, Managing Partner of Venable’s Los Angeles office. “Our diverse clientele has come to rely on Venable’s Business Group to handle not only their corporate legal matters, but their personal and family wealth planning needs as well.”
Prior to entering private practice, Ms. Zaffos worked as a Senior Associate in the legal department of PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she addressed an array of complex tax issues, such as Section 174 research expenditures and Section 41 research and experimentation tax credits, giving her a well-rounded perspective on the estate planning field. In addition, she has advised nonprofit and tax exempt associations, and has handled trust and probate litigation.
“Stephanie is one of the up and coming lawyers in the wealth planning area,” says Los Angeles Trust and Estates Partner Michele Mulrooney. “She will be an asset to our team as a result of her professional background and her passion for this area of law.”
Ms. Zaffos serves on the Executive Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association Taxation Section and is active in the pro bono adoption program sponsored by the nonprofit Public Counsel Law Center. Ms. Zaffos is a member of ProVisors and also enjoys mentoring young lawyers in all practices of law. She received her J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1999. She also received a B.A. from UCLA in 1996 graduating cum laude.
On Venable’s growth trajectory, Emhoff states, “Since 2008, we have steadily increased the ranks of our Los Angeles Business Group with prominent attorneys who have both domestic and international corporate and tax expertise across a wide variety of industries, particularly in the media and entertainment space. Over the next few years, we look forward to increasing the number of Los Angeles attorneys practicing in all of our core service areas.”
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Note: An American Lawyer Global 100 law firm, Venable serves corporate, institutional, governmental, nonprofit and individual clients throughout the U.S. and around the world. Headquartered in Washington, DC, with offices in California, Maryland, New York and Virginia, Venable LLP lawyers and legislative advisors serve the needs of our domestic and global clients in all areas of corporate and business law, complex litigation, intellectual property, regulatory, and government affairs.