CHICAGO – Gould & Ratner LLP is pleased to announce that Sevan V. Avakian, Seth W. Goettelman and Erika H. Jerwick have joined the firm as associate attorneys. Avakian and Goettelman are members of the firm’s Corporate Practice, and Jerwick is part of the Tax and Wealth Transfer Practice.
Avakian, previously with Axia Law LLC in Chicago, counsels privately held and family-run entrepreneurial businesses in a variety of corporate matters, including mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, private equity and venture capital financings, joint ventures, debt financing transactions and corporate governance. He earned a J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Loyola University Chicago.
Goettelman focuses his practice in the areas of private equity, mergers and acquisitions, institutional investor services, venture capital, private placements and general business law services. He has extensive experience representing privately and publicly held businesses, private fund sponsors and institutional investors in transactions such as acquisitions and divestitures, fund formation, investments in private funds and other alternative asset classes, and secondary market transactions. Before joining Gould & Ratner, Goettelman served as Senior Counsel for Hyatt Hotels Corp. He earned his J.D. from University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School and his bachelor’s degree from University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
Jerwick concentrates her practice in the areas of tax counseling and estate planning, helping clients manage the tax and financial aspects of complex business transactions, including maximizing the deferral of tax payments and the after-tax proceeds. Before joining Gould & Ratner, Jerwick was a senior associate with PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she advised clients on the tax aspects of a wide range of corporate transactions for clients in diverse industries. She earned both her J.D. and an LL.M. in Taxation from the University of Miami School of Law, and she has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan. Jerwick is currently only admitted in Florida; she is not admitted or licensed to practice law in Illinois.
For more than 75 years, Gould & Ratner LLP has provided comprehensive legal counsel and business advice to Fortune 500 corporations, closely held businesses, financial institutions and entrepreneurs, as well as families and their businesses in real estate, corporate, tax, estate and succession planning, litigation, human resources and employment, environmental, intellectual property and related specialty fields.