Matt Paolillo (from left), Amy McGehee, Lance Einstein, Jeffrey Kess and Ashley Duel of Menden Freiman, Atlanta. (Courtesy photo)

MendenFreiman has added a six-lawyer tax controversy practice from another business law boutique, Gomel Davis & Watson.

The group, which arrived in July, is led by partners Lance Einstein and Jeffrey Kess. Rounding out the team are senior associate Chris Chitty and associates Amy McGehee, L. Ashley Duel and Matt Paolillo.

Einstein said MendenFreiman, a trusts, estates and business law boutique, offers good synergies for a tax controversy practice. All of the lawyers in the group are tax attorneys, he said, while some also handle trusts and estates and business planning. For instance, Einstein has an undergraduate accounting degree and an LLM in tax. “We are very heavy into tax,” he said.

He declined to name clients but said the backbone of his team’s practice includes high net-worth individuals and closely-held businesses. That includes entertainers and athletes. “They make a lot of money and are not always great with their finances,” Einstein said.

Other clients are real estate developers, doctors and lawyers. “The only people we don’t see are accountants,” he said.

A lot of clients call because of an IRS audit, he said. “We figure out what the business or individual actually owes and then try and minimize the amount,” he said. If a client can’t pay, then the lawyers help them come up with a solution, whether a settlement, paying in installments or getting the penalties reduced or waived.

Einstein said all of their clients followed the team to MendenFreiman. “The depth, sophistication and infrastructure they have is fantastic—especially at the boutique firm level,” he said, adding that he’s known MendenFreiman co-founder Larry Freiman since starting out in 2007.

Freiman said he wanted to add a tax controversy practice to his firm, and it was just a question of finding the right people.

Einstein and Kess ”have the same vision we have,” Freiman said, adding, “A lot of lawyers are somewhat narrowly focused on the work in front of them. They don’t take a holistic view of their clients, practice and the way their law practice should contribute to their lives.”

“We practice law as a firm, in a team environment,” he said. “That was a real appeal to us about Lance and Jeffrey. Over the years we’ve talked to a lot of people—it’s a minority that gets it.”

Kess started the tax controversy practice at Gomel Davis & Watson, which handles tax, estate and business planning law, and Einstein helped build it after he joined over a decade ago, adding associates along the way.

Walter Gomel, who co-founded the boutique 40 years ago with Ron Davis, said it was a “very amicable” transition. “We’re all good friends, and we still do some work together,” he said.

Einstein confirmed his team left on good terms with the Gomel Davis & Watson lawyers. “They were very helpful and generous with our transition,” he said.

“We had different visions moving forward,” Einstein explained. “We don’t want to be a big firm, but we wanted to grow a little bit more to service our clients.”

The additions give MendenFreiman 15 lawyers. Freiman acknowledged that there is a size “beyond which we’d have difficulty running the firm as a nimble, agile, boutique practice and maintain our culture and vision.”

“This is not the ceiling for us,” he said of MendenFreiman’s expansion to 15 lawyers. “We will continue to look at growth opportunities. But there is a ceiling.”