Every January, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, more than 50 Chuhak & Tecson, P.C. employees — attorneys, paralegals and staff —engage in various service opportunities to pay tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy. Such opportunities, ranging from packaging personal care items for women escaping abuse to knitting blankets for hospital patients, offer individuals the chance to develop meaningful connections with diverse communities while raising awareness and serving a local nonprofit.

Cognizant of the positive effects community service has on its employees and the communities it serves, Chuhak & Tecson will extend its annual Martin Luther King Jr. day of service in 2019. With the support of its Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Council and Women Helping Women (WHW) program, the firm will hold three days of community service—in January, May and June— to meet the vital needs of Pacific Garden Mission, Wills for Heroes Foundation and Chicago Lights Urban Farm. .

Chuhak & Tecson’s three days of community service will kick off on Martin Luther King Jr. Day at Pacific Garden Mission. The country’s oldest operating Gospel rescue mission, Pacific Garden Mission provides food, shelter, clothing and medical care to the Chicago community. Throughout the day Chuhak & Tecson employees will prepare bedrolls, serve a meal in the kitchen and perform other light housekeeping assignments.

“Year after year, Chuhak & Tecson employees enthusiastically arrive at the mission with smiles on their faces and ready to get to work,” said Gerald Casey, director of outreach ministries. “It is great to see organizations like Chuhak & Tecson committed to giving back to the community and finding new ways of doing so.”

In May, Chuhak & Tecson volunteers will assist Wills for Heroes Foundation. Headed by the firm’s Estate Planning & Asset Protection practice group leader Lindsey Paige Markus, attorneys, paralegals and staff will protect those who protect us by providing essential estate planning documents free of charge to veterans and first responders.

The three days of community service will culminate in June with the final group of volunteers paying tribute to another civil rights activist, Cesar Chavez. Volunteers will spend their Saturday afternoon at Chicago Lights Urban Farm planting and harvesting produce, weeding beds and turning compost at the nonprofit’s community garden. Chicago Lights Urban Farm, whose mission is to provide hope and opportunity to children, youth and adults facing the challenges of poverty, cultivates the garden for the community so youth and adults have access to fresh, local and sustainably grown produce.

Chuhak & Tecson looks forward to launching the three days of community service and providing a lending hand to its communities.

“Helping those in need is a value woven into the culture of the D&I Council, Women Helping Women and the firm as whole,” said Terry Isselhard, D&I Council chair. “Our employees have always placed personal importance on giving back within their communities, and Chuhak & Tecson strives to support their passion by developing opportunities for them to reach not only their own individual goals—but also our firm’s goals.”

To learn more about Chuhak & Tecson’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, click here.

Chuhak & Tecson, P.C. principal Kevin M. Coyne will reveal to the Illinois REALTORS® Commercial/Industrial/Investment Committee the benefits Opportunity Zones have in communities and the opportunities they provide to investors, followed by a discussion of the requirements needed to create a Qualified Opportunity Zone Fund. Coyne’s presentation takes place from 8 to 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, January 23, at Embassy Suites by Hilton East Peoria Riverfront Hotel & Conference Center, 100 Conference Center Dr., East Peoria IL. Registration is not required. Illinois REALTORS® meet in East Peoria for the annual Public Policy meetings to ensure they have a voice in the local, state and federal public policy issues and legislative battles that affect their business. For a complete list of meetings over three days, click here.

Coyne leads the 18-attorney Real Estate Practice Group at Chuhak & Tecson. He represents national franchises, restaurants, bars and professional practices and has substantial experience negotiating office, retail and industrial leases on the national and local levels for landlords and tenants. Priding himself on the personal attention he brings to every transaction, Coyne crafts meticulous documentation tailored to align with the client’s present and future business needs and goals. Serving on the City of Naperville’s City Council has given him a unique perspective and constructive insight for clients facing municipal issues in Chicagoland.

Illinois REALTORS® is the only advocate for private property rights at the capitol in Springfield and in communities statewide. This organization stands for excellence in advocacy, education and ethics for real estate practitioners. One of Illinois’ largest trade associations, Illinois REALTORS® represent 47,000 members involved in virtually all aspects related to the sale, purchase, exchange or lease of residential or commercial property in Illinois. 

Chuhak & Tecson, P.C. principal Kevin M. Coyne will reveal to the DuPage County Bar Association’s Local Government Committee the benefits Opportunity Zones have in communities and the opportunities they provide to investors, followed by a discussion of the requirements needed to create a Qualified Opportunity Zone Fund.Coyne’s presentation takes place from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday, January 24, in the Attorney Resource Center at the DuPage Judicial Center, 505 N. County Farm Road, Wheaton. To register, click here.

Coyne leads the 18-attorney Real Estate Practice Group at Chuhak & Tecson. He represents national franchises, restaurants, bars and professional practices and has substantial experience negotiating office, retail and industrial leases on the national and local levels for landlords and tenants. Priding himself on the personal attention he brings to every transaction, Coyne crafts meticulous documentation tailored to align with the client’s present and future business needs and goals. Serving on the City of Naperville’s City Council has given him a unique perspective and constructive insight for clients facing municipal issues in Chicagoland.

The DuPage County Bar Association’s (DCBA) Local Government Committee keeps DCBA fully informed of all case law, statutory and regulatory changes in this area including administrative law in coordination with Legislative Liaison. The committee surveys various corporate in-house departments as to which service the DCBA could provide to these attorneys. 

Chuhak & Tecson, P.C. Principal Lindsey Paige Markus participated in a complimentary webinar hosted by Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School’s Endowment Committee titled “Planned Giving Opportunities” where she provided the audience with tax planning strategies to maximize charitable contributions. While examining the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and its effect on the standard deduction, she reviewed the concept of bunching charitable gifts—where taxpayers can exceed the standard deduction and itemize their deductions in a given year—and explained the value of opening a donor-advised fund. Markus also detailed important items for consideration in order to leverage tax planning upon death.

Markus, leader of Chuhak & Tecson’s Estate Planning Practice Group, is an educator at heart. In addition to her regular column in Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, she is a dynamic contributor to local news outlets such as NBC 5 Chicago, Fox News Chicago, WGN Radio and WCIU. In serving her clients, she draws on her early career in business, finance and clinically applied neuroscience to develop innovative solutions to fit their estate planning, wealth protection and corporate needs. Her breadth of experience and commitment to training audiences about estate planning has afforded her recognition as a Crain’s Chicago Business Notable Women Lawyer, a Law Bulletin 40 Illinois Attorneys Under Forty, a Woman Making an Impact in the Law, an Illinois Super Lawyer and a Leading Lawyer. Markus has a national practice and is licensed in both Illinois and Florida.

Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School is an independent Jewish day school for the 21st century. Its mission is to engage students in a program of rigorous studies through a variety of classroom and real world learning opportunities, to educate students to be active and informed citizens in a pluralistic community, to inspire them to develop Jewish literacy and to guide them as they embrace their chosen Jewish practice and beliefs.

Chuhak & Tecson, P.C. is proud to announce that Ashlee Germany, the first recipient of the Joseph A. Tecson Scholarship, has joined the firm as a law clerk. In her new role, Germany works directly with attorneys, gaining hands-on experience in a variety of the firm’s practice areas.

The scholarship is administered by DePaul University College of Law and is open to any first-year law student in good standing and with proven financial need, with a preference for those who have performed community service. It provides support to one student each year with books and supplies and is renewable for those students who remain in good academic standing. All Joseph A. Tecson Scholarship recipients are invited to attend firm events and apply to the law clerk program. Now a third-year law student at DePaul, Germany is actively engaged in numerous student organizations—as president of the Student Bar Association, managing editor of the DePaul Law Review and member of the Diversity Council. She previously chaired the Black Law Students Association and the Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity.

As a Chuhak & Tecson law clerk Germany has myriad opportunities to develop her skills—from legal research to discovery work and from sitting in on depositions to going to court with attorneys. The longstanding maxim at Chuhak & Tecson is—Your experience here as a law clerk is what you make of it.

Germany enjoys expanding and sharing her legal knowledge through writing. Her article titled “Cause I ain’t got no pencil: a call for Chicago Public School funding litigation reform” will be published in the DePaul Law Review in 2019. While she studied many practice areas, her favorite course to date is constitutional law because of the role it plays in protecting the rights of citizens. She is considering focusing her practice in employment or commercial litigation law, two of Chuhak & Tecson’s 12 practice groups.

Germany received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Prior to joining Chuhak & Tecson, she was a legal intern at Modelez International in Chicago and a summer associate at Stinson Leonard Street LLP in Kansas City.

For more information about the scholarship, visit Joseph A. Tecson Scholarship Fund.

Principal Lindsey Paige Markus joined WGN Radio – 720 AM host Steve Bertrand on his Wintrust Business Lunch radio show on “Giving Tuesday,” November 27, 2018. Markus unraveled the upcoming changes for this year’s tax season and provided strategies that maximize savings. Focusing on “bunching” deductions of charitable gifts in family foundations and comparing that entity to the current trend of a donor-advised fund (DAF), Markus shared realistic tax scenarios that listeners identified with to get them thinking about the possibilities for this year’s tax planning. Listen to the broadcast in its entirety by clicking here.

Markus, a shareholder at Chuhak & Tecson P.C., draws on her early career in business, finance and clinically applied neuroscience to communicate with clients and develop creative solutions to fit their estate planning, wealth protection and corporate needs. She is a dynamic contributor to local news outlets such as NBC 5 Chicago, Fox News Chicago and WCIU, and has been recognized as a Crain’s Chicago Business Notable Women Lawyer, a Law Bulletin 40 Illinois Attorneys Under Forty, a Woman Making an Impact in the Law, an Illinois Super Lawyer and a Leading Lawyer. Markus is licensed in Illinois and Florida and has a national practice.

Wintrust Business Lunch with Steve Bertrand is broadcasted weekdays from noon to 1 p.m. on WGN Radio – 720 AM on the dial.

On Wednesday, Nov. 28, Chuhak & Tecson, P.C. principal David Shiner will present “Practical Guidelines for Managing a Decedent’s Estate.” This interactive workshop is set for 8:30 a.m. to 12:05 p.m. at the Illinois CPA Society, 550 W. Jackson Blvd., Chicago. Shiner will examine tax issues that may escalate from the death of an estate holder, explore post-death estate planning opportunities and provide practical guidance for the preparation of estate returns.

Leader of the firm’s Tax and Employee Benefits practice group, Shiner works closely with his clients structuring transactions that minimize exposure to state and federal estate taxes. Shiner is also a certified public accountant with a masters of law in taxation. He is highly experienced with handling cases in the U.S. Tax Court in gift, estate and income tax matters.

For additional information or to register, visit Practical Guidelines for Managing a Decedent’s Estate.

On Thursday, Nov. 15, Chuhak & Tecson, P.C. principal Edwin I. Josephson was recognized as a Distinguished Counsellor by the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA). 

Conferred annually, this recognition is presented to ISBA members who have completed 50 years of honorable service at the Bar, while demonstrating a continued interest in the advancement of the profession of law and setting an inspiring example of devotion and fidelity to the duties and obligations of an attorney and counsellor.  

Josephson focuses his practice on general corporate, tax law, real estate and estate planning. He is a frequent speaker and author on issues of taxation to accounting and business organizations and publications.

Founded in 1877, the Illinois State Bar Association is the premier legal association in the state. As a voluntary organization of 28,000 members, its primary focus is to assist Illinois lawyers in the practice of law and to promote improvements in the administration of justice.