Stephen M. Breitstone is Chair of the firm’s Private Wealth and Taxation Practice Group. His approach combines business planning and income, estate and gift tax planning with a special emphasis on real estate. His clients include domestic and international real estate owners and developers, closely held businesses, public companies, private equity funds, trusts and estates, and charitable organizations. His combination of skills as a transactional and income tax attorney and as an estate planner enables him to effectively advise clients on their individual needs and those of their businesses.
He frequently serves as general counsel and financial and business advisor to several of his clients and has been an expert witness in litigation over Section 1031 exchange transactions. He has been an adjunct professor, teaching Tax and Business Planning for Real Estate Transactions and Taxation of Partnerships at Cardozo Law School and is a Fellow of both the American College of Trusts and Estates Council (“ACTEC”) and the American College of Tax Council (“ACTC”). He is currently a co-chair of ABA’s Sales, Exchange and Basis Committee (“SEB”) and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
He has presented papers at the NYU Institute on Federal Taxation, Practicing Law Institute, Notre Dame Tax and Estate Planning Institute, Bloomberg BNA Tax Management, National Multi-Housing Conference, Jeremiah Long Section 1031 Conference, Federation of (1031) Exchange Accommodators, etc.
His style of practice is personal, not institutional; and his clients’ goals and objectives are his priority. He has been interviewed on tax and financial topics by local and national media, including CBS, ABC, Fox, Fox Business News, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg, among others. Stephen also is a Member of the Member of the National Dance Institute Board and co-chair of its Finance Committee.
Jerome M. Hesch is Counsel to the firm’s Business & Real Estate Taxation, Trusts & Estates, Tax Exempt Organizations and Private Wealth & Taxation Practice Groups. Prior to joining the firm, Jerry served as an income tax and estate planning consultant for lawyers and other tax planning professionals throughout the country. Jerry was a consultant for Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein & Breitstone, LLP, Dorot & Bensimon PL, Jeffrey M. Verdon Law Group and Oshins & Associates LLC.
Jerry is the Director of the Notre Dame Tax and Estate Planning Institute and is on the Tax Management Advisory Board. Jerry is a Fellow of the American College of Trusts and Estates Council and the American College of Tax Council. He is also a member of the NAEPC Estate Planning Hall of Fame. He has published numerous articles, Tax Management Portfolios, and co-authored a law school casebook on federal income taxation, now in its fourth edition.
Jerry presented papers for the University of Miami Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, the University of Southern California Tax Institute, the Southern Federal Tax Conference and the New York University Institute on Federal Taxation, among others. He has participated in several bar association projects, including the Drafting Committee for the Revised Uniform Partnership Act.
He was with the Office of Chief Counsel, Internal Revenue Service (1970-1975) and was a full-time law professor at the University of Miami School of Law and the Albany Law School of Union University for twenty years. He continues to teach courses as an adjunct law professor and has taught courses for Vanderbilt University Law School, University of Miami School of Law Graduate Program in Estate Planning, University of Buffalo School of Law, Florida International School of Law, On-Line LL.M. Programs for University of San Francisco Law School and Boston University School of Law. In addition, he was the Director of the Graduate Program in Estate Planning at the University of Miami from 1982-1992.