General Counsel of Family Firm Institute Appointed
CHICAGO — Jared Kaplan, a partner in McDermott Will & Emery’s Employee Benefits Department, has been appointed General Counsel of the Family Firm Institute (FFI). The FFI is an international professional organization dedicated to assisting family firms by increasing the interdisciplinary skills and knowledge of family business advisors, educators, researchers and consultants. As general counsel, Mr. Kaplan will be advising the organization on a pro bono basis and participating in FFI board meetings. In 1999, Mr. Kaplan completed a three-year term on the Board of Directors of the FFI.
Mr. Kaplan’s role with the FFI is one of the various positions MWE lawyers hold that reflect the Firm’s extensive family business consulting practice. The Firm provides general corporate, tax, estate planning, employee benefits planning and other legal services to family businesses that range in size from small new enterprises to some of the largest nonpublic corporations in the United States. The Firm currently represents 28% of the Forbes Largest Private Companies.
Mr. Kaplan, based in the Firm’s Chicago office, concentrates his practice in federal tax matters, corporate finance and employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs). He currently serves on the ESOP Association’s Valuation Advisory Committee. He is the former chairman of the State of Illinois Advisory Task Force on Ownership Succession, and has served on the state’s Employee-Owned Enterprise Advisory Council. He served as Chairman of the Legislative and Regulatory Advisory Committee of the ESOP Association from 1985 to 1990. Mr. Kaplan is also a past chairman of the Administrative Practice Committee of the American Bar Association’s Tax Section.
FFI members are lawyers, therapists, accountants, management consultants, financial planners, economists, insurance professionals, sociologists, educators and other specialists, the entire spectrum of professionals who advise, study or work in family businesses. Its interdisciplinary membership makes it a unique forum for exploration of the myriad, complex issues that challenge family-owned businesses, which comprise 80 to 90% of all business enterprises in North America, 30 to 35% of the Fortune 500 companies, and the majority of enterprises internationally. For more information on the FFI visit www.ffi.org.
