DALLAS — Gardere Wynne Sewell announced today that it has been recognized among the top law firms in Texas, earning high rankings in seven practice areas in Chambers USA’s prestigious annual survey of the U.S. legal industry.

Gardere is ranked among Texas’ top business law firms in six of the practice areas highlighted in the Chambers USA Guide: America's Leading Business Lawyers 2008 survey. The firm is recognized for its work on behalf of clients in Antitrust, Bankruptcy/Restructuring, Corporate/Mergers and Acquisitions, Insurance, Real Estate and Tax matters.

The firm is also named among the top in the nation for its Government Contracts practice. Marshall J. Doke Jr., a partner in the Dallas office, received national recognition for his work in the area of Government Contracts.

Additionally, 18 of the firm’s partners, representing 11 practice areas, were recognized as being among the best attorneys in Texas in their respective fields. They include:

Antitrust – Curtis L. Frisbie Jr., Dallas; Randy Gordon, Dallas

Bankruptcy/Restructuring – Deirdre Ruckman, Dallas; Holland O’Neil, Dallas; Richard Roberson, Dallas

Corporate/M&A – Larry Schoenbrun, Dallas

Environment – Frances Phillips, Dallas; Richard Faulk, Houston

Insurance – Kimberly Yelkin, Austin; James Cooper, Houston; John Pearson, Houston

Intellectual Property – Kenneth Glaser, Dallas

Labor & Employment – Neil Martin, Houston

Real Estate – Kevin Kelley, Dallas

Tax – Allen Craig III, Houston

Tax Litigation – Cym Lowell, Dallas; Val Albright, Dallas

Technology Corporate & Commercial – Frank Putman, Houston

“We are very pleased not only with recognition that we have received as a firm, but also for the recognition our individual lawyers have earned,” says Gardere Managing Partner Steve Good. “We take pride in providing the best possible legal counsel in the areas that matter to our clients.”

Published annually by London-based Chambers & Partners, the Chambers USA guide recognizes the top business law firms and leading individual attorneys in the United States. The firms and attorneys are selected for the merit-based listing based upon interviews by more than 100 researchers with more than 4,500 private attorneys and in-house counsel across the U.S. Complete rankings appear in Chambers USA Guide: America's Leading Business Lawyers 2008 and can be found online here.

Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP, founded in 1909, is one of the Southwest’s largest full-service law firms.

Source: Gardere Wynne Sewell

READ MORE - Dallas law firm Gardere Wynne Sewell recognized as one of the top firms in Texas by Chambers USA

Although we would like to believe that just the odd few people decide they do not want to pay their taxes to the government, this is not the case as many businesses fall foul of tax laws as well. Anyone found doing this is committing an offence under the tax laws of the United States. Perpetrators can be punished severely for this type of offence as it can have serious consequences on the running of government. Most often these so called ‘clean crimes’ are carried out by what are considered respectable people that have not been in trouble with the law in the past.

There are types of tax fraud and degrees of seriousness with tax evasion the most important but it can also refer to the small business that is just late in filing their tax report for the financial year. Tax fraud lawyers are specialized attorneys that deal with issues of tax fraud and represent clients who are accused of tax fraud.

Do not mistake a tax fraud lawyer for someone you will contact to help file your tax returns as their sole purpose is to represent people accused of tax crimes. There are two situations where a person or firm will seek their help; when they suspect their affairs are being looked into by the IRS or where they have been formally charged with the offence of tax fraud. Imprisonment is not always necessary though and a good tax fraud lawyer will try to negotiate a settlement between the authorities and his client so that their liability is lessened.

It is not uncommon for people and even companies to fail in their tax responsibilities through lack of knowledge or understanding of their responsibilities. Some individuals and firms also fall foul of poor advice for their tax planning form the tax specialists they employ to represent them.

Often attorneys will provide proof that their client was the unwilling victim of tax fraud and although still guilty it is usual for the punishment in these circumstances to be more lenient or the charges dropped completely. The need to choose a tax consultant that has proper qualifications cannot be underestimated in circumstance like this if investigation by the IRS is too be avoided.

The normal approach by a tax fraud lawyer will be too reason the argument that prosecuting the individual or company will not serve the public interest as recovery of the taxes owed is less likely. Sending a tax evader to prison just places additional costs on the system which are paid by other tax payers with little chance of the tax owed being paid so the argument to allow the offender to pay by installments will be made by a good attorney as the best in the public interest

READ MORE - The Normal Approach By A Tax Fraud Lawyer

I’m a lawyer. Worse yet, I’m a bond lawyer and tax lawyer. This means I have to read and interpret complex, tedious, mind-numbing regulations and statutes. I read and write 80-page, single-spaced document. I argue over commas, for crying out loud! I deeply and thoroughly understand what it means to be a legalist — I am one in the purest, truest sense of the word.

It’s great training for reading the Bible and confronting arguments about what the Bible means. And I learned a long time ago that even bond and tax lawyers aren’t one-tenth the legalists that some of my brothers in Christ are! I mean, the theologians put the lawyers to shame when it comes to straining out the meaning of words.

Some of our preachers (none in my congregation) make arguments in all sincerity that a lawyer would be too embarrassed to take money to make! And when a lawyer won’t take money to make an argument, well, it’s a pretty bad argument. We call this the “red faced” test — whether you can make the argument without your face turning red. When the argument is that bad, you don’t make it because you lose all credibility with whomever you are arguing with.

This little article is a plea that our preachers elevate their discourse to at least the level of the most dastardly, unethical, venal lawyers. And that surely isn’t asking too much.

We lawyers have a few sayings that we recite in Latin. Latin is largely a lost art among lawyers, but a few sayings are too deeply rooted in the original Latin — from back when the church ran many of the courts in “Olde England” — to leave behind. You’ve heard of habeas corpus, for example. It’s been in the news quite a lot lately.

We also say, “Expressio unius est exclusio alterius.” And, no, we don’t know how to pronounce it either, which is why we shorten it to “expressio unius” (ex-SPRES-i-o you-NYE-us). The phonetic pronunciation will likely curdle the blood of anyone who actually knows Latin, but pronounce it right among lawyers and we’ll consider you pretentious — not that we’d care. We’re used to lawyers acting that way!

This means that the express mention of one thing excludes all others. Sound familiar? Expressio unius is a rule of statutory construction that is used to figure out what the legislature means in its often-badly written laws. And it makes sense. If you say x, you mean x and not something else. Seems too obvious to mention, actually.

In Church of Christ circles, the argument comes up in the instrumental music debate. We say, correctly I think: God told Noah to build his ark with gopher wood (cypress, in the NIV). If Noah had used cedar or pine instead, he surely would’ve violated God’s will-and certainly he would have. Expressio unius.

Therefore, we reason, not quite so well, if God said to sing, he didn’t mean play an instrument. Not expressio unius. Not even close.

Why does the first example about Noah work and the second one about instruments not work? Well, because you can’t build an ark out of gopher wood while also building it out of pine. The nature of the thing is that you must do one or the other. In fact, expressio unius, and common sense, tells us that God didn’t mean to use mainly pine and trim it out with gopher wood. He meant just gopher wood.

However, using an instrument does not by any means contradict the command to sing. Sing with an instrument and you are, plainly enough, singing. The command to use gopher wood does not contradict using nails or bringing lanterns on board or storing hay or using brass hinges on the door or doing anything else — so long as Noah didn’t substitute the wrong kind of wood for components made of wood.

Just so, if we didn’t sing at all — if we just played kazoos in church — that would violate expressio unius. But adding to the singing does not change the fact that we’re singing.

At this point, the usual rejoinder is that we’re adding a sixth act of worship, as the instrument is a mean of worship. That argument is answered at http://jayguin.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/15-acts-of-worship.pdf.

The next response is that the people playing instruments aren’t singing, but by that standard, about 40% of most churches are damned! After all, many of our members decline to sing. And we often have a soundboard operator or PowerPoint operator or someone counting the money or even the preacher not singing! Of course, many instrumentalists sing while they play or during other parts of the service, and they are generally much more involved in the song service than the women in the nursery.

The final argument is that instruments are not permitted because they are unauthorized — and authority is required for all acts of worship. Now, this is a more serious argument. It goes back to the so-called Regulative Principle propounded by John Calvin and his disciples — and Calvin was a most serious guy. But addressing the merits of the Calvinistic argument on worship is for another day.

READ MORE - Expressio Unius