Partner
Richard A. Leavy
- Real Estate
- Tax
- Tax Controversy
RICHARD LEAVY’s practice includes all areas of state and local taxation, with a concentration on transactional structuring and operational tax planning, and also extensive experience managing and resolving tax controversies before administrative panels and in the courts throughout the United States. Before joining Sidley in 2010, Richard was a partner at a prominent international law firm. During the 1995–1996 term, he served as the judicial intern to The Honorable Leonard I. Garth, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He has been recognized by Chambers USA (2012–2023) in New York Tax: State & Local, where he has been ranked for twelve years. Sources in the 2018 edition describe him as “extremely creative, knowledgeable, precise and responsive across a wide range of state and local tax issues in many jurisdictions.”
Experience
- Representative Matters
- Memberships and Activities
Richard’s experience includes the representation of:
- Investment banks in connection with securities and commodities transactions; physical asset ownership and investment; principal investment in portfolio companies and investment partnerships; contractual relations with counterparties, vendors and clients; leveraged leasing transactions; and broker-dealer operations.
- Developers, lenders, and tax equity investors in renewable energy, oil and gas production and transportation, electric power generation, and infrastructure project development, ownership, and disposition.
- Oil and gas fired power-plant owners in their purchases of fuel, sales of electricity, and operations optimization.
- Developers, lenders, and tax equity investors in multifamily residential, commercial, and industrial real estate development.
- Commercial banks and other lenders in connection with tax and equity project finance, securitized lending, delinquent loan restructuring, and loan foreclosures.
- Medical device, pharmaceutical, software, semiconductor, and financial technology companies in connection with technology and patent transfers, acquisitions and product taxability issues.
- Real estate investors, lenders, owners and developers in planning property acquisition, ownership, syndication, development, recapitalization and disposition.
- Investment funds in all stages of planning, marketing, formation and operation.
- Manufacturers, wholesalers and mass market on-line, mail order and bricks-and-mortar retailers in connection with their day-to-day compliance and operations.
- Prospective recipients of discretionary and as-of-right state and local tax and economic development incentives and legacy recipients of incentives in the administration and renegotiation of their grant obligations.
Richard served as co-adjunct member of the faculty at the Rutgers University School of Law in Newark, New Jersey (1997–2005) where he taught courses on the federal income taxation of corporations and shareholders and state and local taxation and has been an adjunct instructor in the graduate tax program at the Sy Syms School of Business of Yeshiva University (2021 to present).
Capabilities
SERVICES AND INDUSTRIES
- Hospitality
- Real Estate
- Tax
- Tax Controversy
- Acquisition and Disposition
- Escheat Counseling and Unclaimed Property Litigation
- Foundations and Other Exempt Organizations
- State and Local Tax Controversy
- State and Local Taxation
- Tax - Capital Markets Transactions and Derivative Products
- Tax - Investment Funds
- Tax - M&A and Private Equity
- Tax Credits and Opportunity Zones
- Taxation of Executive Compensation
News & Insights
Credentials
Admissions & Certifications
- U.S. Supreme Court
- U.S. Tax Court
- U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey
- New Jersey
- New York
Education
- New York University School of Law, LL.M., 1997
- Rutgers School of Law - Newark, J.D., 1996
- Rutgers University, B.A., 1992