Contact: Barrie K. Handy, Sr. Marketing Manager, 206.757.8494 or barriehandy@dwt.com
Davis Wright Tremaine LLP is pleased to announce that Jean L. Tom has joined the firm as a partner and member of the tax-exempt organizations practice group. Jean joins the firm after practicing for over a decade with the New York firm of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP.
Jean becomes the fifth member of Davis Wright Tremaine’s New York tax-exempt organizations group, joining former Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom attorneys Dan Kurtz, J.J. Harwayne Leitner, Coleen McGrath and Shveta Kakar, who joined the firm’s New York office last month. In June, Jean will relocate to the firm’s San Francisco office, where she will continue her work representing tax-exempt organizations on both the East and West coasts.
“I am delighted to become a part of this team at Davis Wright Tremaine,” said Jean. “The co-chairs of the firm’s national TEO practice, Dan Kurtz and LaVerne Woods, are people I greatly admire, and being able to work with them is a tremendous opportunity for me and my clients. I am also excited about making the move later this year to join the firm’s San Francisco office--thereby further expanding the geography of our practice group.”
Jean represents a diverse array of non-profit organizations, including public charities, private foundations, social welfare organizations, and trade associations, on corporate, tax, and regulatory matters both domestically and internationally. She counsels clients on entity choice and formation, tax compliance, domestic and international grant-making, governance matters, executive compensation, and organizational structuring (e.g., subsidiaries, affiliates, joint ventures, and mergers). Jean also advises clients on public and private partnerships, political intervention and lobbying, and program- and mission-related investments. A frequent speaker on matters pertaining to non-profits, Jean has also represented organizations in connection with attorney general investigations and before the IRS. She has served on the Committee on Nonprofit Organizations of the New York City Bar Association and on the ABA’s Committee on Tax-Exempt Organizations.
Prior to law firm practice, Jean served as a law clerk for the Hon. Raymond J. Dearie, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, and currently serves as a member of the court’s Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Committee. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Center for Community Change, and has served as a Coro Fellow in Public Affairs in New York. Jean received her B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard University and her J.D. from Yale Law School. Jean is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.