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Domingo Such focuses his practice on excellence in the delivery of legal advice that is results oriented. He serves as the firmwide chair of the Family Office Services practice, a multi-disciplinary practice representing family offices and quasi-family office arrangements comprised of operating companies, boards of directors, fiduciaries, beneficiaries. He also serves on the Firmwide Partner Compensation Committee and the Firm’s Strategic Diversity Committee. Using his MBA education and business acumen, he advises public and private businesses and single and multifamily offices (including trustees and trust companies), serving as general counsel and driving their legal strategy in significant and complex matters. On behalf of family office clients, he participated in obtaining the 2020 year end SEC ruling favorable to family offices building on the seminal family office exclusion obtained by the firm ten years prior in partnership with the Private Investor Coalition. Recently, he has been a part of the direct investment and monetization of portfolio companies through SPACs and PIPEs. He provides innovative and timely advice on income, gift, estate and generation-skipping transfer tax planning matters, charitable giving and planning for succession of ownership during life and at death through estates and trusts. Chambers Global High Net Worth Guide notes that Domingo “understands the family implications and emotional implications of estate plans.” His representation of wealthy families and high- net worth individuals is distinctive for its business pragmatism that contributes to transactions coming to fruition and holistic relations based solutions for family systems and the family members.
Ranked in Chambers Global High Net Worth Guide for Private Wealth and Family Offices & Fund Structuring, Domingo is acknowledged as being “extremely conscientious of all issues arising within the trust & estate field. He is financially astute and thinks about next steps and drafting of documents that reflect such expertise. His breadth of knowledge is unbounded.” His representation of family offices and its principals is distinctive for its business pragmatism and holistic approach.
As Domingo’s clients' often have issues related to tax, business, corporate, litigation, and intellectual property, he leverages the strengths of his firmwide colleagues in these areas to reach optimal solutions for clients. For more than 25 years, Domingo has advised and counseled clients in such areas as transfer tax, income tax, business and succession planning, executive compensation planning for private and public companies, charitable organizations, and organic corporate restructuring transactions. Clients recognize Domingo for providing high-value, strategic solutions and extraordinary client service on the confidential and private matters vital to his clients’ interests.
Transactional Counsel and Lead Adviser
His transactional counsel includes structuring, negotiating and documenting corporate formations, corporate governance, due diligence, mergers, acquisitions and securities issuance. Domingo has worked on corporate transactions for large publicly owned clients, family investment funds, as well as closely held emerging enterprises, and has represented family offices as well as fiduciaries in contested and transactional matters.
Prior to attending law school, Domingo earned his MBA degree and served as an auditor for a publicly traded ESOP manufacturing company. Applying business experience to legal issues facing clients, Domingo advises on the use and administration of ESOPs for succession planning and management buy-outs, and serves as the lead partner for one of the oldest and largest Chicago area ESOP-owned manufacturers.
Domingo’s role as general counsel to closely held businesses includes advising retailers, wholesalers, construction companies, hospitality real estate and software management companies, media, forestry, milling, and medical devices manufacturers. In addition, he represents taxpayers on contested tax matters through federal and state audits, administrative appeals and litigation in the U.S. Tax Court and U.S. District Court.
Domingo has been quoted in Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, Worth magazine, Crain’s Chicago Business, Private Wealth, Bloomberg Wealth magazine, Financial Advisor, Tax Notes Today, and Stages, a Fidelity Investment magazine. He has published articles in many wealth management publications, including the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) Law Journal, Trusts & Estates magazine, Estate Planning magazine, Distribution Advisor, Aspatore Inside the Minds 2016 Edition, BNA Tax Management Estates, Gifts, and Trusts Journal, The National Center for Employee Ownership NCEO, Wealth Management and the ABA Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Journal.
Professional and Civic Leadership
Domingo has devoted significant time and energy to leadership roles for various for-profit and charitable enterprises, in addition to those at Perkins Coie. He has served as a director of closely held companies and not-for-profit corporations and is a member of the Professional Advisory Committee of the Chicago Community Trust, Loyola University Medical Center; the Body of Knowledge Committee of the Board of Directors of the Family Firm Institute; and the Asian Art Council of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has also served as outside counsel to Family Business Network N.A. (USA), procuring their tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Domingo is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee, which manages the affairs of the firm, including strategic policy-making and governance. Among other roles, Domingo is a member of the Strategic Diversity Committee and Strategic Growth Working Group and is a past member of the Partner Compensation Committee, on which he served a full five-year term.
Domingo is also active with the Loyola University Chicago Family Business Center and the Northwestern Kellogg Executive Education Strategic Leadership Program and serves on the faculty for the Family Firm Institute and lectures for classes at the Loyola University of Chicago School of Law and Graduate School of Business. He also lectures nationally on business and estate planning, and is on the faculty for the American Bankers Association National Graduate Trust School, and the American Bar Association.
A leader in the legal bar, Domingo is past chairman, vice-chair and former legislative liaison for the Chicago Bar Association (CBA) Trust Law Committee. He is also a past chairman, vice-chair and legislative liaison of the CBA Probate Practice Committee, and a member of the American Bar Association, the Asian American Bar Association, the Chicago Estate Planning Council and the National Filipino American Lawyers Association. He has qualified for inclusion as a lifetime member of Worldwide Registry of Executives, Professionals and Entrepreneurs.
Domingo earned an advanced certificate in Family Business Advising with Fellow status from the Family Firm Institute; he is a Fellow of the American College of Trusts & Estates College (ACTEC); and he is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation (ABF), a global honorary society of attorneys, judges, law faculty, and legal scholars whose public and private careers have demonstrated outstanding dedication to the highest principles of the legal profession and to the welfare of their communities. ABF Fellowship is limited to 1% of lawyers licensed to practice who are nominated by their peers and elected by the Board. Elite American Lawyers recognizes Domingo for his dedication, achievement and leadership in legal service. The American Registry recognized Domingo as one of the Top Lawyers in the Midwest. Domingo has also been ranked in Chambers Global High Net Worth Guide, recognized by Illinois Super Lawyers, The National Advocates: Top 100, “Citywealth Leading Lawyers” list as a leading North America attorney, Worth magazine as one of the top 100 trust & estates attorneys in the United States and he was selected by his peers for the U.S. News The Best Lawyers in America. He is a part of the inaugural class of the Most Influential Minority Lawyers in Chicago by Crain’s Chicago Business Custom Media, and he has achieved the highest possible rating in both legal ability and ethical standards by Martindale Hubbell.
