C. ChristopherTrower

Chris Trower has wide-ranging experience in tax litigation, tax planning, and business transactions. That experience includes representation of entrepreneurs and both public and private companies in corporate, partnership, and tax matters, including acquisitions/divestitures, venture capital investments, succession/transfer plans for family enterprises, general corporate/partnership and securities matters, and tax planning and tax disputes.

Typical recent tax matters include litigation focused on the use of unitary or combined corporate returns for state income tax purposes; and structuring grantor retained annuity trusts, self-canceling installment notes, and controlled LLC’s to implement family wealth transfer plans.

Typical recent partnership/LLC transactions include family limited partnership structure and finance work, and the design of investment LLC’s for unrelated co-owners to acquire operating businesses or portfolios of equity investments.

Typical recent corporate matters include acquisitions of privately held companies engaged in the steel tube manufacturing and modular kennel/access fencing businesses; and the divestiture of a resort hotel and marina business by unrelated co-owners.

Chris served as lead independent director of Per-Se Technologies, Inc. (PSTI), the nation's largest provider of healthcare business management outsourcing services, prior to its acquisition in early 2007 by McKesson Corporation. During the ten years 1997 --- 2007, Chris served as a director of Per-Se and as a member of its Audit, Compensation, Corporate Governance (chair) and Regulatory Compliance (chair), committees. From 1991 to 1996 he chaired the Board of Directors of the Gaines Center for the Humanities at the University of Kentucky.

Chris taught corporate tax in Emory Law School’s graduate LLM program, as well as partnership law and partnership tax at the University of Louisville School of Law. He is the author of the treatise Federal Taxation of Bankruptcy and Workouts (Warren, Gorham & Lamont), and co-authored The Drafting of Partnership Agreements (7^th ed. ALI/ABA).

Prior to entering the private practice of law, Chris served as Assistant to the Director of the Kentucky Crime Commission, and as Law Clerk to former Chief Judge Elbert P. Tuttle of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He graduated from Harvard Law School (J.D., cum laude, 1976), where he was Articles Editor of the Harvard Law Review, and received his undergraduate degree from Yale University (B.A., magna cum laude, 1970). He attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.

Chris ran sub-2:50 marathons and played "B" level tennis before taking up golf. Chris shoots in the low 80's on good days. On bad days, he takes consolation in cooking, playing bridge, and expanding his library of detective and science fiction novels.