Title: Harris Shelton Attorney Joe Hanover Recognized at Equality Trailblazers Dedication Ceremony
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Harris Shelton was built upon the historical legacy of attorneys who’ve played pivotal roles in major legislative changes. The firm was founded as a result of the joining of two of the oldest law firms in Memphis – Harris, Shelton, Dunlap, Cobb & Ryder PLLC and Hanover, Walsh, Jalenak & Blair PLLC.
Joseph Hanover, partner of the latter firm, was posthumously recognized for his contributions to the Suffragist movement and the ratification of the 19th amendment at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law Equality Trailblazers Dedication Ceremony that took place on Sunday, March 27.
Hanover was a House of Representatives floor leader who kept pro-suffrage votes together. A Polish immigrant who came to the United States at 11 years old, Hanover became a well known attorney and humanitarian as his career advanced. He had deep roots in Memphis, and he attended area public schools and went on to earn his degree from the law school at the University of Memphis.
As a state, Tennessee played an important role in the movement, as it was the final one to ratify the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote. During the Trailblazers Dedication Ceremony, a monument to 11 women and one man (Joe Hanover) was unveiled to the public. This public memorial honors Shelby County leaders who participated in the nonviolent efforts to win the right to vote for American women.
For more information on Hanover’s life and accomplishments, consider visiting the monument located on the promenade behind the University of Memphis law school, or read “Why Can’t Mother Vote” for a glimpse into his work.
Title: Harris Shelton Announces the Addition of Two Attorneys to its Legal Team
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Harris Shelton Hanover Walsh, PLLC, one of Memphis’ largest law firms, today announced the expansion of its legal team with two new attorneys. Louis Bernsen practices civil litigation, and Paul Matthews practices in various areas of business and corporate law.
“Harris Shelton has provided successful resolutions for our clients’ most complex and diverse matters for more than 100 years,” said Harris Shelton Managing Member Brett Hughes. “The addition of Louis and Paul to our team creates more opportunities to serve our expanding roster of clients in need of litigation and business law representation.”
Bernsen received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law in 2021. Before joining Harris Shelton as an attorney, Bernsen served as a summer law clerk at the firm. Previously, he also clerked for the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office and worked for the United States Attorney’s Office as a legal intern. Bernsen is a member of the Tennessee Bar Association and the Memphis Bar Association.
Matthews brings more than four decades of legal experience to Harris Shelton. He earned his Juris Doctorate from Vanderbilt University Law School and has received numerous awards for his work, including being designated as one of the Best Lawyers in America and one of the “Top 100 Lawyers in Tennessee” by Mid-South Super Lawyers. He’s also a published author, with writing including books and articles on legal and historical topics.
Both attorneys are licensed to practice law in the state of Tennessee and have been admitted to the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee and the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Tennessee. Additionally, Matthews is licensed to practice law in the state of Mississippi, and he has been admitted to the Eastern District of Tennessee, Eastern and Western Districts of Arkansas, Middle District of Tennessee, Northern and Southern Districts of Mississippi, United States Court of Claims, United States Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Sixth Circuits, and United States Supreme Court.
Bernsen and Matthews join Harris Shelton’s award-winning team of more than 50 highly skilled attorneys, licensed to practice in 12 states and covering a broad range of over 62 practice areas.
Title: Tax Talk: What Should I Be Looking Out for – During Tax Season and Beyond?
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March 28, 2022
The April deadline is approaching, though tax season has been well underway for some time. Small business filings under Form 941, for example, were due at the end of January to avoid penalties. Individual payers will be working with their tax teams to finalize their returns and implement any last minute changes.
It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the tax process. The past two years of the pandemic, plus regulatory changes looming in the background, have put added pressure on people from planning, legal and compliance perspectives. As a result, at least one additional appointment with your tax attorney between now and April 18 can make a significant difference.
Until you are ready to file, and really throughout the entire year, there are a few broad things to be kept in mind.
Organize all of your due dates – or have someone do it for you
Particularly when their financial arrangements are complex, the last thing taxpayers want to do is overlook anything by accident, and then either be liable for paying penalties or caught up in an audit. This happens more often than you might imagine, and it is essential to have a safeguard if you are the main person organizing and filing your returns.
It is not a waste of your lawyer’s time, or that of a member of their team, to help you double check on due dates for federal as well as state and municipal taxes if applicable.
Depending on your personal circumstances, this may include your required minimum distribution (RMD) dates for retirement accounts, filings for household employees, compensation filing dates for people impacted by natural disasters – and the separate June 15 date for taxpayers living or filing their federal income taxes from overseas.
Double check on itemized donations and charitable contributions
For many people, their 1040-A lists can be relatively extensive. Remember that for cash contributions to charity, these can be deducted up to $600 for married taxpayers who file jointly, and $300 for single filers. But non-cash charitable contributions, involving gifts of property, are assessed separately. Those valued over $5,000 need to receive a qualified appraisal, the forms of which are then appended to your tax documents.
Work closely with your tax attorney to ensure all of these provisions are completed properly and legally.
Determine if any special circumstances apply to you
The annual tax return will likely be accompanied by other documents outlining their assets, holdings and earnings.
One example of such a situation is the filing of a Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) Report, which is required for anyone earning income from accounts outside of the United States. If you need to file this form, it, too, is due in April. On it, you will provide the largest monetary value of cash and other assets in U.S. dollars (rather than their local currency amounts). You generally have until mid-October to stay compliant if you miss the first deadline in April.
Ensure you are maximizing your allowable savings
For example, several states do not impose personal income taxes, but still levy sales taxes that can add up to a significant sum for many taxpayers over the course of the year.
When itemizing, you are typically able to choose to either deduct state income taxes or sales taxes, depending on which route saves you the largest amount of money. Be aware, however, that the SALT (state and local tax) deduction cap – which is a subject of conversation in Washington right now – does mean that these write-offs are added on top of the property tax you pay, for a cap of $10,000 a year for joint filers.
The ins and outs of SALT deductions can pose challenges, and it will be beneficial for you to receive legal help in navigating them.
Be aware of what’s ahead
Preparation will be key when it comes to additional tax changes beyond the filing date and getting geared up for 2023.
Uncertainty is still in the air around the Build Back Better Act, posing the specter of changes in how Roth IRAs can be converted, for example. And while the estate tax exemption has already been raised, the current law will sunset in 2025 – meaning that it is in earners’ best interests to take full advantage of current rules while they still can.
Because of their experience in balancing maximized compliance with achieving the most advantageous and sound structuring, you should maintain a close relationship with your tax lawyer both during the next few weeks and past tax season. Change is a certainty in both life and taxes – but being caught by surprise does not need to be.
Title: Diversity and inclusion in law: Not just a February event
Content:
February 18, 2022
As Harris Shelton celebrates Black History Month, we are also reflecting upon the firm’s year-round efforts and conversations to create more diverse, inclusive and affirming spaces, for clients as well as our staff.
This commitment is woven tightly into our history. Our founder, the philanthropist and community visionary Walter Chandler, represented the plaintiffs in the landmark Supreme Court decision in Baker v. Carr, the ruling that opened the court to individuals seeking equal representation.
But such a legacy, and current progress on diversity and inclusion (D&I) in legal spaces, is only built by openly and continually questioning where we are and what we can do to reach higher ground. This is no matter how frank or uncomfortable those questions can be.
Where does the legal industry stand on leading the way?
In so many ways, the law is ripe to lead diversity and inclusion efforts across the corporate world. Our focus on seeking justice, inclusion and optimal outcomes for our clients means the same goals make sense within our own walls. But throughout the legal system as a whole, moving beyond words and hopes, into actions and outcomes, remains a work in progress.
Statistical evidence and lived experiences both suggest that things have tangibly improved in law over the past several decades. But if measures like the Bloomberg DEI Framework, measuring diversity, equity and inclusion, are any guide, we still have some way to go. Assessing characteristics like a firm’s demographics, recruitment and retention of professionals from diverse groups and backgrounds, and diversity in firm leadership and talents, Bloomberg’s researchers encountered several unacceptable findings.
Firms did relatively well, in Bloomberg’s estimation, on measures like diversity and inclusion strategies in firm policies and recruiting and retaining lawyers from minority backgrounds. But they performed poorly on leadership diversity, including the number of partners to CEOs that are women or from ethnic minority backgrounds.
In addition, a 2019 report from the National Association for Law Placement found that women only comprised 35% of attorneys at some of the country’s major law firms. About 16% came from racial or ethnic minority backgrounds, and 8% were women from racial or ethnic minority backgrounds. That number keeps climbing, up from when an era not so long ago when women were not permitted to attend law school, or were the exception in an all-male classroom.
Benefits of diversity and inclusion in the law
Diversity and inclusion should not simply be a slogan for the legal world.
In law, drawing from diverse backgrounds and unique perspectives is essential to the very success of a firm. Benefits include more competitive performance, more authentic and meaningful client relationships, and a greater external and community credibility and reputation for the firm.
Simply put, it’s important for clients to see themselves reflected back in our firm. It is crucial for the future of the sector that women, ethnic and racial minorities, LGBTQ people and others see pathways to internships, clerkships, and partnerships for themselves and their peers.
When we represent clients in court, discuss cases, or even contemplating the very growth of our firm among each other, firms need to be able to speak authentically about lived experiences impacting systemically disadvantaged groups. Only then do our roles as advocates become stronger.
What role does bias play in holding back diversity and inclusion in the legal world?
In short, plenty. Bias is highly complex and includes both innate or learned preconceptions and prejudices (implicit bias). We cannot often consciously identify bias without aid. The ability to consciously self-reflect on bias, and working in a company culture that encourages us to look authentically at our biases and challenge them, is essential to seeing and overcoming implicit bias for each of us.
Preconceived notions, as lawyers, can lead us to make assumptions about adversaries and even clients that we shouldn’t. In human resources, they may lead us to question or pass over a perfectly qualified candidate, because of reservations we have that are based on our own implicit bias.
We all have biases. It is not something that makes us bad or good as people, or even necessarily bad at what we do. But bias can hinder our performance, and that of the firm, if left unchecked.
Where is the solution? To start, maximizing training on emotional intelligence and implicit bias, which enables attorneys and staff to look at their biases as objectively as possible. Someone who is not aware of their own emotions, for example, may not even see that there is a problem in how they look at certain situations.
It is also essential to take a clear-eyed look at the data to see how legal teams can be diversified. Each firm will be able to use their own data as the basis of a strategy for wider recruitment and retention of people of color, women of color, LGBTQ individuals, and others who remain underrepresented in the law but whose contributions to the firm’s work will be invaluable.
Moreover, it’s essential for firms to consider whether or not the hiring processes, too, reflect biases.
Being better listeners
Legal professionals need no introduction to how hectic and fast paced this practice is. But listening is not a question of time. It is instead one of effort.
Both active and reflective listening are essential for diversity and inclusion. Active listening means that we engage ourselves fully and non-judgmentally with the perspectives and viewpoints we hear. Reflective listening allows us to process, often out loud, what others are saying by putting them in our own words, again without embellishing or misrepresenting what they say.
Though these are crucial skills to have in conversation, we can take them further. This includes actively surveying different perspectives among minority groups who work at the firm. It also means gauging feedback on the hiring process, both among current members of the firm and interviewees – whether or not they advanced to the next stage.
Listening, also, does not mean passively hearing or collecting information and opinions, and then doing nothing with them – especially when problems are identified.
What to do with what we learn – where do we go from here?
Encouraging the creation of groups and organizations within the firm that advocate for the interests of minority or underrepresented professionals can help ensure that the perspectives heard are channeled into action, and that accountability is always present in ensuring that goals are consistently met. Not just in February, but all year old.
Inclusiveness is, in part, a mindset. But it is also a set of behaviors and intentional actions, which everyone must participate in in some way.
Our commitment at Harris Shelton is to absorb, listen and do – this month and always.
Title: Amber Griffin Shaw Named to Top 100 Trial Lawyer, Top 25 Women Trial Lawyer Lists in Tennessee
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Harris Shelton Hanover Walsh, PLLC, one of Memphis’ largest law firms, today announced that Amber Griffin Shaw has been recognized by The National Trial Lawyers Top 100 and The National Women Trial Lawyers Top 25 for her exceptional work as a trial attorney.
Both the National Trial Lawyers Top 100 and the National Women Trial Lawyers Top 25 are invitation-only organizations, composed of top trial lawyers from each state who demonstrate superior qualifications of leadership, reputation, influence, stature and public profile. The selection process begins with peer nominations, followed by a combination of third-party research. Membership is extended to a select few of the most qualified attorneys.
“It’s an honor to be recognized by this particular organization,” said Shaw. “For clients who face life altering circumstances, such as a catastrophic car accident or defective product failure, or even if your life savings were swindled away, it is always my hope to get them into a better place than they were when they walked through my door.”
For more than a decade, Shaw has honed her skills as a trial lawyer in both jury and bench trials and conducted numerous depositions, arguments, motions, trial examinations. She also has experience with appeals.
As the managing member of Harris Shelton’s office in Covington, Tennessee, Shaw has been awarded membership in a variety of categories presented by The National Trial Lawyers including Top 40 Under 40, Top 25 Products Liability, Top 25 Personal Injury, Top 25 Women. Shaw was previously named Tipton County Chamber of Commerce Outstanding Woman of the Year and Memphis Area Legal Services Pro Bono Attorney of the Year – Tipton.
About The National Trial Lawyers
The National Trial Lawyers organization is an essential source of information, education and networking for the most accomplished trial lawyers throughout America. It is the mission of The National Trial Lawyers to provide networking opportunities, advocacy training, and the highest quality educational programs for the nation’s leading trial lawyers.
Title: Harris Shelton, Dee Hobbs, Jr. Launch Name, Image and Likeness Practice Area
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Harris Shelton Hanover Walsh, PLLC has announced that Milton “Dee” Hobbs, Jr., who heads the firm’s Oxford, Mississippi, office, will lead the firm’s practice of name, image and likeness (NIL) transactions on behalf of businesses looking to partner with collegiate athletes. This is a fast-evolving area of law since the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) unveiled historic policies this year in relation to athletes’ ability to benefit from NIL activities.
Following a four-year stint at a renowned law firm in Birmingham, Alabama, Hobbs founded DH Sports Management LLC and worked as an NFL agent for three years. Hobbs has represented NFL players and Division 1 coaches with various contractual matters and disputes. To the representation of clients’ NIL matters, Hobbs brings significant experience in quick and effective contract negotiations, as well as in complicated media and public relations issues on behalf of businesses, players, coaches and other public figures.
“The NCAA’s new rules related to NIL have generated significant interest both for America’s hardworking young athletes and the colleges they represent, presenting tremendous potential but plenty of unresolved legal questions and challenges,” said Hobbs. “It’s my privilege to help Harris Shelton clients navigate complex matters related to market rate compensation, player market value, impacts of name, image and likeness issues on University recruiting efforts of athletes and the new issues raised by the transfer portal.
Hobbs periodically teaches as an adjunct instructor at the University of Mississippi School of Business and has previously served on the board of directors for the Ole Miss Alumni Association.
Title: Harris Shelton Attorney Chad Roberts Runs in Support of Nonprofit Banebow
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Harris Shelton Attorney Chad Roberts recently laced up his running shoes in support of the Banebow 2021 5K Fun Run/Walk, held at Montgomery Bell State Park in Burns, Tennessee. Chad completed the race in 20 minutes and 17 seconds, placing first overall. Congratulations, Chad!
Banebow, a nonprofit founded by two parents in memory of their young son, Bane, offers therapeutic counseling services to those who have experienced the loss of a child. Proceeds from the race directly support the continuation of therapeutic programs. We invite you to learn more about their mission and ways to get involved by visiting their website.
Title: Harris Shelton Attorney Benjamin West Named Vice President of Lafayette County Bar Association
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Harris Shelton is proud to announce that Attorney Benjamin D. West was selected by his peers to serve as Vice President of the Lafayette County Bar Association for the 2021-2022 term.
As a professional organization, the Lafayette County Bar Association offers networking, educational and professional development opportunities to local Mississippi members. West previously served as the organization’s Secretary in 2011-2012 and as Treasurer in 2012. He will lead the organization as President in the 2022-2023 term.
West, a native Memphian, earned both his bachelor’s degree and Juris Doctorate from the University of Mississippi and began his legal career in Oxford. He has a diverse background in litigation, having worked in private practice and as in-house counsel for a Fortune 500 company. West also worked for two of the most prestigious global law firms in Houston, Texas, before returning to Oxford.
West, who is based in Harris Shelton’s Oxford office, is licensed to practice law in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas. An equity member of Harris Shelton, he leverages his vast experience to provide cost-effective litigation, regulatory, compliance and dispute resolution strategies for our clients.
Title: A Generation Plans for Largest Transfer of Wealth in Modern History
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Americans ages 70 years and older hold 27 percent of all U.S. wealth, with a total net worth of $35 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data.
The largest transfer of wealth in modern history is beginning to take shape as the baby boomer generation plans to transfer the extraordinary stockpile of money they have accumulated.
When reporter Christin Yates of the Daily Memphian recently wrote about this massive transfer of wealth, Harris Shelton Attorney Chad Roberts, who practices in the areas of taxation and estate planning, joined the conversation. Read more about Chad’s insights on this hot topic in the Daily Memphian.
If you need assistance with your estate planning, call Harris Shelton today at (901) 525-1455.
Title: HARRIS SHELTON ATTORNEYS RECEIVE BEST LAWYERS® RECOGNITION
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Memphis, Tennessee, August 26, 2021 – Harris Shelton, PLLC, one of Memphis’ largest law firms, today announced that 30 of its attorneys have been recognized by their peers for inclusion in the 2022 edition of The Best Lawyers in America©, and another six attorneys have been named in the second edition of Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch.
First published in 1983, Best Lawyers is the oldest and most respected ranking guide in the legal profession. It recognizes top legal talent in more than 70 countries using peer review methodologies. Honorees are seasoned legal professionals who have typically practiced for more than 10 years. To view a list of the Harris Shelton attorneys who received the Best Lawyer distinction, click here.
Three attorneys received inclusion on the list for “Lawyer of the Year” in Memphis: Steven Douglass for his work in Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights / Insolvency and Reorganization Law, Matthew Kirby for his work in the practice area of Workers’ Compensation Law and Edward McKenney, Jr. for his work in Municipal Law. Every year, special recognition is given to a single lawyer with the highest overall peer-review ranking in a specific practice area and designated geographic location. To view a comprehensive list of Harris Shelton attorneys who have been recognized as a “Lawyer of the Year” in Memphis, click here.
Now in its second edition, Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch awards are extended to attorneys who are in the earlier stages of their legal careers for outstanding professional performance in private practice. Those who are recognized are selected following the same peer review process as that of Best Lawyers. To view the list of Harris Shelton attorneys who received this recognition, click here.
Learn more about Best Lawyers methodology here.