Marc Z. Samotny is a partner in the firm’s Business, Finance and Tax Law (including Estate Planning) Practice Groups. For more than 40 years, Marc has counseled privately held businesses and investors on a wide range of matters including mergers and acquisitions, sales, financing, contract work and other commercial matters. He also counsels privately held businesses on succession planning. Marc works extensively with the owners, CEOs and senior management teams of clients in industries such as distribution, manufacturing, financing (including commercial lenders) software development and other technology, commercial real estate, insurance brokerage and sports franchises – both nationally and internationally.
Marc has over the past couple of years represented a diverse group of equity investors located throughout the United States. One of those investors recently commented that Marc is just “a businessman who happens to have a law degree.” That comment best describes Marc’s approach to the practice of law. He is ready, willing and able to help a client in all aspects of his or her business. Marc has many twenty and thirty year relationships with clients and other professional advisors.
Marc was born and raised on the north side of Chicago and has lived in the Chicago area his entire life. He attended Southern Illinois University where he undergraduated in accounting and the John Marshall Law School. Marc is also a Certified Public Accountant. He is admitted to the Illinois State Bar, the Bar for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and the U.S. Tax Court. Marc is a member of the American, Illinois and Chicago Bar Associations.
Marc is a past chairman and current board member (25 years) of The Cancer Wellness Center (Northbrook, Illinois). He is also a member of the board of directors of the Harold Eisenberg Cancer Research Foundation. Marc previously was a board member of the Northbrook Hockey League and the Northern Illinois Hockey League.
Marc serves on the board of directors of a number of his clients. He actively participates with management of those companies on a monthly or quarterly basis by attending and participating in board meetings. One of Marc’s favorite stories about the practice of law concerns an individual client and that client’s label manufacturing and distribution business. Marc helped this client purchase the label business in 1981. He became a member of the board of directors and trusted advisor immediately. Marc helped the client in all aspects of the business, including obtaining bank financing, the purchase and sale of three separate plants over the years, hiring of plant managers and retaining accounting firms. In 1994 Marc helped the client sell the business to a private equity firm and again, in 2006 helped the client reacquire the business (using senior and mezzanine debt without use of the client’s personal funds). Marc helped the client again sell the business to another private equity firm in 2011. As Marc says “it is a great run and a great story.”
