Gail Bley advises entrepreneurs, family and other closely held businesses, and their families, on tax and financial issues related to acquisitions, investments, mergers, strategic alliances, and joint ventures.  Her forte is problem solving – recommending and structuring solutions for complex transactions to accomplish client specific goals, including minimizing or deferring taxation.  Gail has extensive experience in representing real estate and investment partnerships, limited liability companies and other entities from their inception through the sale, exchange or other disposition of their holdings, focusing not only on minimizing or deferring the tax liabilities, but also on those intangible issues affecting business owners and their family dynamics.

In addition to business-related transactions, Gail works closely with families on myriad multi-generation matters related to wealth transfer and succession planning.  The structures and solutions she recommends are designed to ensure continuity and unity within a family’s personal and business activities. Gail has more than twenty-five years of experience handling the full range of tax, wealth transfer and succession planning matters, including charitable trusts, private foundations, life insurance planning and generation-skipping and other multi-generational wealth transfer techniques.

Gail is a former member of the firm’s Management Committee and is licensed to practice law in Illinois and Texas.  She is also a Certified Financial Planner™.

Recent Representative Matters

• Advises multi-generation families and their businesses in developing and implementing strategies to assure transition and continuity of family business activities, long-term wealth transfer, and charitable goals.
• Advises family and other entrepreneurial businesses on tax efficient ownership structures.

Professional and Civic Affiliations

• The Executives' Club of Chicago
• Women's Bar Association
• Chicago Estate Planning Council
• Chicago Bar Association
• American Bar Association
• Law clerk to the honorable Prentice H. Marshall of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (1979-1981)

Articles

• The Uncertain Fate of Estate and Gift Taxes

Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. owns the certification marks CFP®, Certified Financial Planner™ and federally registered CFP in the U.S., which it awards to individuals who successfully complete CFP Board's initial and ongoing certification requirements.