AT WORK

Joseph D. Ament is an accomplished tax and business lawyer, as well as a certified public accountant. He has extensive experience in financial, estate and income tax planning; business mergers and acquisitions; and entity structures, including corporations, partnerships and limited liability companies.

Joe is the sole Chicago-area attorney to participate in litigation brought on behalf of Holocaust victims and their heirs against Swiss, German, Austrian and French banks for restitution of assets; against German industrial companies for using slave and forced labor; against pharmaceutical companies for conducting medical experiments; against life insurance companies for non-payment of claims; and against other entities engaged in unlawful activities during World War II.

IN THE PROFESSION

Since 1966, Joe has taught taxation, estate planning and business ethics courses at Roosevelt University, where he is currently the Samuel W. Specthrie Distinguished Professor of Accounting and Taxation. He chaired the Department of Accounting and Taxation for 19 years. Joe is also the recipient of the Arthur L. Crandall Award, given biannually to the outstanding faculty member in Roosevelt University's Walter E. Heller College of Business Administration. Before his engagement at Roosevelt, he taught accounting and taxation at Loyola University.

An active member of the American Bar Association, Joe serves on the ABA's Committees on General Income Taxation Problems, Teaching Taxation, and Federal Taxation of Real Estate Transactions. He has also served as editor for numerous publications of the ABA Tax Section.

Joe has been the Illinois Education Vice President and a Director of the American Association of Attorneys-CPAs. He has also served as a member of the board of directors of the National Association of Securities and Commercial Attorneys and has served on the U.S. Income Taxation Advisory Board of BNA/Tax Management in Washington, D.C.

Joe is also a member of the Illinois State Bar Association, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Illinois Association of Attorneys-CPAs, the American Accounting Association, the American Taxation Association and the Decalogue Society of Lawyers. Joe is a member of the Illinois Society of Certified Public Accountants and its 150 Hour Implementation, Educator/CPA Issues and Ethics Committees, as well as the Insurance Conference Task Force. He also chairs its Continuing Education Ethics Subcommittee and has chaired its Grants/Research Committee.

He chaired a Special Appeal Hearing Panel of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and has served on several of the Exchange's committees, including the Finance, Budget and Planning Committee and the Leasing Committee. He has served on the Exchange's Clearinghouse Finance and Oversight Committees. He is a member of the Exchange's International Monetary and Index and Options Markets. Joe has also been an arbitrator for the National Futures Association and an NFA-approved Commodities Trading Adviser and Commodities Pool Operator.

Joe is a regular speaker on taxation and business ethics topics at seminars and conferences sponsored by universities, banks, professional groups, bar associations, and national, regional, and local CPA groups throughout the United States. He is the co-author of an article on partnership income taxation published in BNA's Tax Management Portfolio 282-2d, and has written numerous articles on tax topics published in such professional journals as Illinois CPA and Taxation for Accountants. Joe is also the author of manuscripts developed for the insurance and reinsurance industries and served as editor of the Slovak Republic Taxation Manuscript.

Joe has been named an Illinois Super Lawyer (2005-2008), an honor given to the top 5% of attorneys in the state. Also, Leading Lawyers Network has recognized Joe as a top Illinois lawyer in the areas of business and individual tax law (2006-2008). Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory has given Joe its highest rating (AV).

IN THE COMMUNITY

Joe is a longtime leader in civic and charitable causes. He is currently Chair of the Hillels of Illinois Endowment Foundation, a member of the National Hillel Lay Leadership Board and past Chair of the Hillels of Illinois Governing Commission (1993-96). He served for three years as Vice Chair and for nine years as a Director of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, and is a current member of that organization's Finance, Legacies and Endowments, and Audit Committees, as well as its Agency Endowment Foundation.

Joe is a Life Trustee/Director and former President of the Ida Crown Jewish Academy and an active member of North Suburban Synagogue Beth El in Highland Park, where he serves as a ritual official and on the congregation's Ritual Committee. Joe sits on John Marshall Law School's Braun Bequest Fund Annual Lecture Series Committee and is a member of the Braun Bequest Fund Committees of Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, the Chicago Board of Jewish Education and the Council for Jewish Elderly.

BACKGROUND

The John Marshall Law School
J.D., 1962

Roosevelt University
M.B.A., 1959

University of Illinois
B.S., 1958

Joe became a certified public accountant in 1959. Before beginning his career in law, he spent eight years as a staff CPA and tax manager with David Himmelblau & Company.

Joe is admitted to practice in Illinois. He is also admitted to practice before the U.S. Tax Court and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.