James Chapman is a Senior Counsel in the Firm’s Los Angeles office and a member of the Real Estate practice group. He has extensive experience with assisting clients to maximize the tax benefits, and minimize the tax risks, of business transactions on an integrated basis with the business terms of the client’s deal. He has broad experience drafting legal agreements, particularly partnerships and LLC agreements.

Mr. Chapman’s technical tax experience has focused on US federal income taxes, with additional experience in the areas of state/local income taxes, sales and use taxes, property taxes, payroll taxes, and the tax regimes of non-US jurisdictions.

Mr. Chapman has advised clients of many diverse shapes and sizes, including:

  • US based businesses with international operations
  • Foreign businesses with US operations
  • Real estate financing and tax credits
  • Motion picture production and tax credits
  • Private equity funds and their senior management
  • Bankruptcy Court appointed Trustees
  • Court appointed Receivers
  • Estate planning
  • Charities

Mr. Chapman previously was an adjunct professor in the Masters in Taxation program at California State University Northridge, where he taught partnership taxation and legal writing, research and ethics.

He is a Certified Insolvency and Restructuring Advisor (CIRA) by the Association of Insolvency & Restructuring Advisors (AIRA).

  • Mr. Chapman was a Tax Director in the corporate tax department of The Walt Disney Company from 2015 to 2024, where his work focused on the tax aspects of motion picture production (including US state and international production incentives) and distribution.

Mr. Chapman earned his J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law where he was Associate Executive Editor of the Hastings International & Comparative Law Review and Student Editor of The Back Forty (newsletter of tax and conservation law). He earned his LL.M. in Taxation from New York University’s School of Law and his B.A. magna cum laude from the University of Oregon, Robert D. Clark Honors College.

  • Former Chairman of the Entertainment Tax Committee and Corporate TAX Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association
  • Served as a member of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses from 2002-2014