In 2023, Phyllis Simon joined Garcia & Gurney. She is in the firm’s Business Transactions Group. In early childhood Phyllis learned important lessons about the certainty of death and taxes and later learned the profound impact that death and taxes can have on businesses of all sizes and the individual owners. She recalls waiting until almost midnight to eat dinner one April 15th during childhood, while her parents worked to complete their tax return before the filing deadline. A few years later her mother passed away unexpectedly, and she learned what happens when a key player of an organization is no longer available to perform their duties.
Early in her career, Phyllis worked as a tax specialist in a large, certified public accounting firm and later as in-house tax counsel for Fortune 500 telecommunications company. Her perspective from these roles, her childhood tax and death experiences, and her work with a variety of client types through several boutique law firms, help inform her practical and business-minded approach to the representation of small and medium-sized businesses and individuals. Phyllis’ areas of practice encompass business transactions, mergers and acquisitions, entity formations, commercial real estate transactions and a host of other business issues faced by clients.
Phyllis attended Stanford University where she earned an AB degree with honors in International Relations. While attending Stanford, she participated in the Stanford in Paris Program. She earned her Juris Doctorate (JD) degree from Berkeley Law.
Phyllis enjoys helping for-profit and nonprofit organizations, and she has worked with a range of companies at various stages of their lifecycles, from planning strategies for the challenges faced by Silicon Valley startups to managing the ongoing needs of established businesses or preparing companies for successful exit strategies. When necessary, Phyllis will delve into a particular industry to intelligently serve the needs of her clients. By way of example, over the years she has developed a niche practice working with the vehicle reinsurance industry, where she has represented auto dealers and administrators of vehicle reinsurance programs in connection with both business transactions and tax controversy matters.
When she is not counseling clients, Phyllis enjoys hiking, gardening, and testing recipes.
