Maureen A. McGinnity has a business litigation practice, focusing on federal, state, and local tax litigation and resolution of complex contract and tax disputes. She has litigated valuation issues in the context of shareholder disputes and with respect to complex property tax matters, including the assessments of office buildings, a landfill, and golf courses. Additionally, she has litigated various sales and use and property tax exemptions, including manufacturing, waste treatment, recycling, and computer exemptions. She has extensive civil litigation experience, has tried many cases to verdict or decision, and has successfully argued cases before state and federal courts of appeals and the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Ms. McGinnity is the firm’s Chief Diversity Partner, a role in which she is a catalyst for and leader in carrying out the firm’s commitment to diversity. She is a member of the Business Litigation & Dispute Resolution and Taxation Practices.
Examples of Ms. McGinnity’s successful informal resolutions of litigated tax cases include:
- Filed a refund action in U.S. District Court to recover excise taxes imposed for client’s alleged violation of minimum pension funding requirements; resolved the case with the Department of Justice on terms favorable to the client within 6 months after filing the action.
- Filed a refund action in U.S. District Court to recover taxes assessed as a result of the disputed valuation of a conservation easement; following discovery, negotiated a favorable settlement with the Department of Justice.
- Retained by a railroad company to settle a Wisconsin franchise tax issue that had been litigated by another firm for years; within a few months after being retained, negotiated a favorable settlement with the Department of Revenue that covered a 17-year period and saved the client millions of dollars in disputed taxes.
Reported tax cases recently litigated by Ms. McGinnity include:
- Gundersen Clinic, Ltd. (Wis. Tax Appeals Commission): Held that MRIs and other medical devices are exempt from property tax as computers or electronic peripheral equipment.
- The Newark Group, Inc. (Wis. Tax Appeals Commission, aff’d by Dane Co. Cir. Ct): Held that paper manufacturing plants that use waste paper as raw material are waste treatment facilities exempt from property tax.
- Menasha Corporation (Wis. Supreme Court): Upheld Tax Appeals Commission’s determination that SAP enterprise software programs are "custom" rather than "prewritten" and therefore exempt from sales tax.
Ms. McGinnity is an author and general editor of LexisNexis Wisconsin Practice Insights: Tax (Matthew Bender & Co., Inc., 2008), a featured author of Inside the Minds: Tax Litigation Best Practices (Aspatore, Inc., 2006), and is a regular contributing author of tax law updates for the Council on State Taxation (COST) conference materials and the State Bar of Wisconsin’s Annual Survey of Wisconsin Law.
Ms. McGinnity has been Peer Review Rated as AV® Preeminent™, the highest performance rating in Martindale-Hubbell's peer review rating system. She was selected for inclusion in the 2006 - 2012 Wisconsin Super Lawyers® lists and The Best Lawyers in America® 2013 in the area of commercial litigation and litigation & controversy – tax law. She was recognized in the 2008 - 2012 Chambers USA: America's Leading Business Lawyers as a leading private practice attorney for her litigation work. Ms. McGinnity was recently recognized by the Wisconsin Law Journal as a “2012 Leader in the Law” and was recognized in 2003 as one of the top 10 women in the law and was featured in The Business Journal’s 2004 "Leadership Roll Call" as a community leader in the legal profession.
Ms. McGinnity is a past chair of the Board of Governors of the State Bar of Wisconsin, past-president of the Association for Women Lawyers, past president of the Milwaukee Young Lawyers Association, and is a member of the American Bar Association, State Bar of Wisconsin, and the Milwaukee Bar Association. Ms. McGinnity was appointed by the chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court to serve as one of two State Bar representatives on the Supreme Court's Planning and Policy Advisory Committee, which developed a long-range strategic plan for the Wisconsin judiciary. Ms. McGinnity’s bar admissions include the State of Wisconsin, U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Wisconsin, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First and Seventh Circuits, the U.S. Tax Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Recognition for Ms. McGinnity’s legal work on behalf of indigent clients has included the State Bar of Wisconsin's Pro Bono Award and Legal Action of Wisconsin's "Beyond the Call" Award. She also was presented with the Donald O'Melia Award for Local Service by the Wisconsin Law Foundation. Ms. McGinnity has been profiled in American Lawyer magazine for her pro bono work and was named one of Milwaukee's "Forty Under Forty" leaders.
Among other charitable and community activities, Ms. McGinnity is a member of Milwaukee Women Inc., a group dedicated to promoting women in leadership positions; a member and past president of Professional Dimensions, a professional women’s organization; and serves on the board of the Boys & Girls Club.
Ms. McGinnity holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee (1977) and a J.D. degree, cum laude, from the University of Wisconsin – Madison (1982), where she served as a member of the editorial board and later as managing editor of the Wisconsin Law Review.