McDermott Will & Schulte, a global law firm

Catherine (Cate) A. Battin is the head of McDermott Will & Schulte’s State & Local Tax Practice Group and has practiced at the firm for more than 20 years.

Cate represents clients in all aspects of state and local tax matters, including controversies at the audit, administrative, and judicial levels across several jurisdictions. She advises on national state tax strategies involving a broad range of issues, such as income tax apportionment, sourcing, nexus, transfer pricing, combination and sales tax characterization of products and services, and other local excise tax issues. She has a particular focus on state and local tax controversies and has litigated cases throughout the United States, successfully arguing cases before state appellate and supreme courts.

Cate regularly speaks on state and local tax issues and has presented before organizations such as the Tax Executives Institute, the Council on State Taxation, the Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois, and The Chicago Tax Club.

Prior to joining McDermott, Cate worked at a major international accounting and consulting firm, where she focused exclusively on state and local taxes.

Parisa M. Griess focuses her practice on representing taxpayers in complex tax disputes against US and foreign tax authorities. Her diverse experience includes audit defense, administrative appeals, tax litigation, competent authority matters, and criminal tax investigations primarily for technology, media, and manufacturing companies, as well as high-net-worth individuals. She also frequently advises clients on audit risk and audit readiness. Parisa’s technical expertise includes transfer pricing, Subpart F, section 956, permanent establishments and other treaty matters, business deductions, executive compensation and employee benefits, withholding taxes, information reporting, summons enforcement, and penalties.

Beyond her tax practice, Parisa also has an active pro bono practice that has included representing individuals who have been unlawfully detained. She has also worked with the nonprofit Public International Law & Policy Group to provide pro bono legal and policy advice on drafting a post-conflict constitution for the Republic of Yemen and the creation and operation of a tribunal in Africa to prosecute piracy.

Parisa served as a judicial intern for the Honorable Ricardo M. Urbina of the US District Court for the District of Columbia. Prior to law school, she worked at the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy, where she served as a financial economist and a Stanley S. Surrey Fellow.

Kristen E. Hazel has extensive experience representing clients in US and international aspects of federal tax matters, including international acquisitions and divestitures, international joint ventures, and capital plan design and implementation, including tax planning with respect to intellectual property. Her work includes both inbound and outbound transactions.

Kristen is the co-head of the Firm’s Captive Insurance Affinity Group. She regularly counsels clients with respect to the tax aspects of organizing, operating and defending captive insurance companies. She is head of the Firm’s New Business Committee and is a member of the Firm’s Professional Responsibility Committee.

Kristen frequently speaks on captive insurance, domestic and international tax topics for various professional organizations.

Kristen is a co-founder of Tax in the City: A Tax Roundtable®, which consists of tax professionals with an interest in discussing substantive tax issues in a collegial and confidential setting.

Lindsay Heyen concentrates her practice on the tax aspects of complex business and investment transactions, with a particular focus on single-family offices and private investment funds, and transactions involving partnerships and limited liability companies, such as acquisitions, divestitures, investments, joint ventures and restructurings.

Lindsay has extensive experience working with single-family offices in connection with the formation and/or restructuring of family offices and investment entities, the creation of investment funds, the establishment of incentive equity programs for key employees and related income tax planning. She also routinely works on complex tax planning for high-net-worth individuals and families, tax structuring for partnership-related matters, and tax controversy matters.

Elizabeth C. Lu focuses her practice on US and international tax matters.  She advises clients on international tax issues, including the subpart F anti-deferral rules, foreign tax credit planning, repatriation, and the international provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (GILTI, FDII, BEAT, etc.).  Elizabeth has experience advising multinational corporations on global supply chain restructurings, acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures, post-acquisition integrations, internal reorganizations, tax controversies, and intellectual property migrations.  Elizabeth also advises clients on tax treaties, cost sharing agreements, and the taxation of the digital economy.

Elizabeth regularly speaks on international tax topics, including as part of the Tax in the City® Roundtable.

While in law school, Elizabeth served as a features editor for the Yale Law Journal.  Elizabeth also worked at the University of Chicago Law School as the chief research assistant to Judge Richard A. Posner and Professor William M. Landes.

Mary Kay McCalla Martire focuses her practice on a wide variety state and local tax issues. She advises clients on matters related to sales tax, with an emphasis on the sale of digital products. In addition, she advises business clients on income tax apportionment and remote employee withholding obligations. Mary Kay counsels individual clients on residency and income sourcing questions, and frequently advises captives and their insureds on direct procurement tax issues. She also has experience with state and local utility and telecommunications tax matters.

Mary Kay has an extensive litigation background in state and federal court, as well as administrative tribunals. She has particular experience in the defense of qui tam (whistleblower) claims filed in the state tax arena and has won the dismissal of many Illinois False Claims Act cases. Mary Kay played a key role in many of the reported decisions issued by the Illinois appellate court in this area. She also has experience defending clients against class action and consumer fraud claims.

Mary Kay also has represented clients in a number of state insurance tax litigation matters, including serving as the principal trial attorney for a group of insurance companies that successfully challenged the constitutionality of the Illinois Privilege Tax (Milwaukee Safeguard Ins. Co. v. Selky, 179 Ill.2d 94 (1997)).

Mary Kay serves as Co-Chair of the Chicago Office Pro Bono Committee. She is actively engaged in a number of pro bono matters, including the representation of not for profits seeking sales and property tax exemptions, and serving as a guardian ad litem in child custody disputes. In 2014, Mary Kay was awarded one of McDermott’s Chicago Office pro bono service awards. In addition, she is an editor of the Firm’s State Tax Blog, InsideSALT.com.

Sarah G. Raaii devotes her practice to issues impacting group health and welfare benefit plans by counseling employers, digital health and point solution clients, plan administrators, insurers, consultants and other health plan service providers.

Sarah advises her clients on healthcare reform issues; consumer-driven health benefits; self-funded and fully insured health plans; data privacy and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA); wellness programs; cafeteria plans; and regulatory, sub-regulatory and legal compliance. She provides guidance on the Affordable Care Act (ACA); the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA); health plan transparency; mental health parity; the No Surprises Act; the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA); flexible benefit plans; health reimbursement accounts (HRAs); health savings accounts (HSAs); plan network design; multiple employer welfare arrangements (MEWAs); association health plans; captive insurance arrangements; and other health benefits issues.

Sarah drafts and negotiates complex agreements between employers, health plans, third-party administrators, pharmacy benefit managers, carriers, consultants and other health plan service providers. She also counsels digital health, telehealth and point solution entities; third-party administrators; pharmacy benefit managers; and other benefit administrators on partnering with employers, group health plans and insurers. As co-chair of the Firm’s Post-Roe Working Group – a multidisciplinary team of lawyers providing clients with reproductive health guidance – Sarah has advised hundreds of health plans and benefit administrators on health benefits following the end of Roe v. Wade.

Additionally, Sarah routinely analyzes frequently changing health benefits laws and regulations and recommends risk mitigation strategies. She provides strategic due diligence and health benefits design, implementation and transition advice on issues arising from corporate and private equity mergers, acquisitions and other transactions.

Sarah frequently publishes and presents on health benefits trends and developments and has been quoted on health plan issues in prominent media outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Law and Law360.

Prior to joining the firm, Sarah worked at the White House for the National Economic Council, where she implemented the ACA with leaders from the Executive Office of the President, the US Department of Labor, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the US Department of the Treasury. She previously collaborated with in-house lawyers and federal and state government relations professionals in the leadership development program of a Fortune 500 global insurance and financial services corporation.

Susan E. Ryba focuses her practice on federal tax controversy matters and tax litigation, particularly advising clients in the technology, healthcare, and pharmaceutical sectors, as well as high-net-worth individuals and complex partnerships.

Susan has substantial experience in all stages of federal tax controversies, including audits, administrative appeals, alternative dispute resolution proceedings, and litigation. She has resolved most of her matters at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) examination level or through the IRS Independent Office of Appeals (IRS Appeals) and other dispute resolution forums. She advises clients on a broad range of domestic and international tax issues, including transfer pricing, research credit, effectively connected income, passive activity losses, Subpart F, Section 965, economic substance and other related doctrines, worthless stock and debt deductions, foreign-derived intangible income, foreign tax credits, summons enforcement, and penalties.

Susan frequently speaks at seminars sponsored by the Tax Executives Institute and teaches trial skills for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.