French-Qualified Attorney (Los Angeles)

Ashford International Law P.C. is looking to hire an attorney admitted in France and admitted in either California or New York for its Los Angeles office. The firm’s French practice has grown to the point where the French side of a file should be advised on in house, by a French lawyer sitting in the same office as the American ones, rather than routed to correspondent counsel. This position is that lawyer.

Pont Alexandre III and the Grand Palais in Paris

About the Firm

Ashford International Law P.C. is a European-American estate and tax law firm with offices in Washington, DC, Los Angeles and Munich. Its attorneys are collectively licensed in the District of Columbia, Virginia, Maryland, California and Germany. The practice concentrates on cross-border estate, trust and tax matters, most often involving Western Europe, and in particular France, Germany and Switzerland. Clients are high net worth and ultra high net worth individuals, families and closely held businesses with assets on both sides of the Atlantic. The firm also advises Western European family-owned companies on their United States subsidiaries and acts as outside counsel to those subsidiaries thereafter.

The Work

French files are among the largest groups of matters the firm handles, and they are not a translation exercise. A French-American estate seldom allows one system to be applied and the other merely noted. Two sets of rules, on who inherits, on what a trust is, and on which country may tax, have to be made to work together in a single plan or a single settlement, usually under a treaty that was drafted before the structures now in front of the client existed. Recurring questions in this position include the following.

  • Reconciling the French réserve héréditaire with the testamentary freedom of United States law, including the 2021 amendment to article 913 of the Civil Code, which restored a compensatory claim for children against assets situated in France where the law governing the succession knows no reserved share;
  • Choice of law under Regulation (EU) 650/2012, and whether a declaration of the deceased’s national law actually achieves what an American estate plan assumes it achieves;
  • The place of a revocable trust in a French succession: how far France recognizes it, who is treated as the constituant, and how the French trust reporting obligations and the sui generis levy apply to a structure that was drafted in California;
  • The 1978 estate and gift tax treaty between France and the United States, as amended, together with the income tax treaty: situs, credits, the marital provisions, and the treaty positions that have to be taken on a return rather than assumed;
  • Matrimonial property: the effect of a French régime matrimonial, and of the 1978 Hague Convention and Regulation (EU) 2016/1103, on what is in the estate at all, on the United States marital deduction and on basis;
  • French holding and ownership structures met on the way through: the société civile immobilière, usufruit and nue-propriété, and how each is classified for United States income, gift and estate tax purposes;
  • Assurance-vie contracts and other French investment products, whose French treatment and United States treatment diverge sharply;
  • United States real estate held by French individuals, estates and structures, including FIRPTA withholding on a sale by a foreign estate and the withholding certificate practice that goes with it;
  • Planning for the French client moving to California or New York, in the window before residence begins, and for the client leaving, including the section 877A expatriation rules;
  • Forming United States subsidiaries for French family-owned businesses and advising them afterwards, including shareholder debt, intercompany agreements and the eventual transfer of shares to the next generation;
  • Contentious matters in which heirs are established in both countries and a French succession and a United States probate are running at the same time.

Your Responsibilities

  • Advising on French law within the scope of your admission, as part of the firm’s own team;
  • Drafting and reviewing the French side of estate plans: wills, choice of law declarations, matrimonial property arrangements, donations, and the French elements of trust-based structures;
  • Legal research and analysis on questions of French and United States private client and tax law, including treaty analysis, and reducing that analysis to written advice on which a client, a notaire and a tax preparer can each act;
  • Managing cross-border matters from the initial consultation to the closing meeting, together with the firm’s attorneys in Los Angeles, Washington and Munich;
  • Corresponding with French notaires, banks, tax authorities and courts, and with the Internal Revenue Service and state authorities in the United States;
  • Direct contact with clients, including the family dynamics that accompany a generational transfer;
  • Contributing to the firm’s French-language publications and client materials, in particular patrimoine-americain.com.

Your Profile

  • Admitted to practice law in France;
  • Admitted to the California Bar or the New York Bar;
  • Candidates who have sat the California or New York examination and are awaiting results may apply;
  • LL.M. or J.D. from a United States law school;
  • A serious interest in estate, tax and closely held business law, and the patience that cross-border work requires;
  • Intellectual rigor, reliability and thoroughness, and the judgment to say plainly when a question is unsettled;
  • Excellent written and spoken French and English;
  • Resident in the Los Angeles area, or willing to relocate there, and authorized to work in the United States.

What We Offer

  • Complex multi-jurisdictional matters from the first week, and the opportunity to build a body of experience that few lawyers in the United States are qualified to acquire;
  • Responsibility for the French side of the practice rather than a supporting role on someone else’s file;
  • Work with the firm’s founding attorney, Caroline Esche Ashford, PhD, JD, a graduate of Columbia University Law School who is admitted in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia and Germany, and who has seventeen years of experience in cross-border private client matters;
  • A long-term position in a growing international boutique;
  • Professional development seminars and conferences;
  • Compensation commensurate with experience, with a production-based bonus;
  • Paid vacation;
  • 401(k) with a 3% match;
  • Health insurance;
  • Flexibility as to hours, including part-time arrangements.

Application Process

Qualified candidates should send a resume, a writing sample and a law school transcript to ce@internationalestatelaw.com. Applications may be submitted in French or in English.

Ashford International Law P.C. is an equal opportunity employer.