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Outside of Chambers rankings of NYC tax firms, are there any top-boutiques out there?

Caplin and Drysdale is probably best tax-only boutique. It's predominantly DC, but has a New York office.

Roberts & Holland is the NYC-based tax boutique. Caplin is also top-notch but has no real NYC presence. (They have three partners, two counsel and one associate in NYC.) There's also Ivins, Phillips & Barker in DC. The former DC tax boutique McKee Nelson was absorbed by Bingham McCutchen's DC office a few years ago, but they're basically a boutique operating within Bingham still.

Most tax work of the sort that a boutique might do is in DC. There are also firms like Sutherland that are not boutiques but have very highly regarded tax practices in their DC offices (usually much more highly regarded than the firm as a whole). I suppose Bingham is like this now, after absorbing McKee Nelson.

^^^This is an excellent breakdown of the current controversy landscape.

I'll also add that much of the controversy work in the Southwest, particularly Texas, goes through Meadows Collier in Dallas.

On top of that, most of the deals tax aspects are handled by tax practice groups of mega firms who handle the corporate and securities aspects. Almost all the small firms (including boutiques like Caplin and Meadows) are predominantly controversy, estate planning and small business formation shops. They aren't really consulted much for deals.

Definitely true that the boutiques do more controversy, especially in DC.

I think R&H is the exception here because they're in NYC. They do a lot of tax deals work that gets conflicted out of big NYC law firms or where the structuring is beyond what the big law firm's tax department can handle (never true at big firms with larger tax groups, e.g. Davis Polk, but many other law firms have only a handful of tax lawyers).

Anonymous User wrote:Definitely true that the boutiques do more controversy, especially in DC.

I think R&H is the exception here because they're in NYC. They do a lot of tax deals work that gets conflicted out of big NYC law firms or where the structuring is beyond what the big law firm's tax department can handle (never true at big firms with larger tax groups, e.g. Davis Polk, but many other law firms have only a handful of tax lawyers).

Kind of surprised to hear that. As a tax lawyer at an NYC biglaw firm, I've really only come across them in the state and local tax arena. There can't be many firms out there doing big deals without decent tax lawyers on board.

To reiterate the above, Caplin/Ivins are the two best boutiques. The Groom Law Group is well known for ERISA work. The boutiques tend to be heavily into controversy or niche practices like exempt organizations. If you want to do M&A work, it's best to go to a firm that does the deals.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Definitely true that the boutiques do more controversy, especially in DC.

I think R&H is the exception here because they're in NYC. They do a lot of tax deals work that gets conflicted out of big NYC law firms or where the structuring is beyond what the big law firm's tax department can handle (never true at big firms with larger tax groups, e.g. Davis Polk, but many other law firms have only a handful of tax lawyers).

Kind of surprised to hear that. As a tax lawyer at an NYC biglaw firm, I've really only come across them in the state and local tax arena. There can't be many firms out there doing big deals without decent tax lawyers on board.

To reiterate the above, Caplin/Ivins are the two best boutiques. The Groom Law Group is well known for ERISA work. The boutiques tend to be heavily into controversy or niche practices like exempt organizations. If you want to do M&A work, it's best to go to a firm that does the deals.

So if I wanted to do tax on M&A deals involving private equity, should I be looking at Chambers tax rankings plus private equity rankings in order to determine what firms I should be aiming for?

Find the firm that does the deals that you're interested in, and join that firm's tax practice group. I'd be hesitant to base that decision off Chambers or any other rankings.