Around the water cooler — Levenfeld Pearlstein and the Chicago Sky

Each week I will highlight a different case or legal happening, and solicit your thoughts on the impact of it in the legal community.

Levenfeld Pearlstein announced that it recently represented, in a pro bono capacity, the Women’s National Basketball Association’s Chicago Sky franchise in the recent formation of Chicago Sky Cares, a tax-exempt charity intended to help disadvantaged women and girls.

Chicago Sky Cares is a not-for-profit corporation that serves as the charitable arm of the Chicago Sky. Chicago Sky Cares seeks to raise funds to invest in programs that assist in building self-esteem, leadership and independence among women and girls.

The goal is to provide girls-in-need with role models, mentors, educators and coaches who model and teach positive life habits that they may carry into their adult lives and into their schools and communities, enabling them to become forces for positive social change. Chicago Sky Cares will engage in activities and experiences that give women and girls the confidence to follow their dreams via independence, leadership, teamwork and healthy lifestyles.

In advising the Chicago Sky in the formation of Chicago Sky Cares, Levenfeld Pearlstein set up the charity as a not-for-profit organization with the state, coordinated the process of applying for the organization’s tax-exempt status with the IRS, and worked with team management to formulate the charity’s business plan.

Michael Tuchman, partner and head of the firm’s taxation service group, acted as counsel to the Chicago Sky on this matter.

Tuchman said Levenfeld Pearlestein has represented the Alter family for more than 30 years. The family, which is in the national real estate development business, owns the WNBA team. And they asked whether the firm would handle this matter on a pro bono basis, he said.

The whole process took about three months and was relatively straightforward, from a legal perspective, he said.

“We viewed this as a real opportunity to do something that was both meaningful for the client, and meaningful for the community as well,” Tuchman said. “It fit in very nicely with the sort of community pro bono work we like to do.”