Judith A. Harris to Serve on Board of Trustees of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival
Posted on September 11th, 2012
September 11, 2012
Norris McLaughlin, P.A.
721 Route 202-206, Suite 200
P.O. Box 5933
Bridgewater, NJ 08807-5933
Contact: Edward C. Miller, Jr.
Chief Marketing Officer
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ecmillerjr@nmmlaw.com
Judith A. Harris to Serve on Board of Trustees of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival
Allentown, PA (September 11, 2012) – Judith A. Harris, Member of Norris McLaughlin, P.A., and Chair of the firm’s Pennsylvania Estate, Trust, and Tax Practice Group, has joined the Board of Trustees of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, an independent, not-for-profit organization founded in 1992.
“It is with much excitement that I join the Board of this dynamic organization. A lifelong enthusiast of drama and musicals, generally, and especially Shakespeare, I recognize how fortunate we are to have the Festival’s first-rate classical, contemporary, and children’s productions available to us locally. The Festival is a jewel in the performing arts crown of the Lehigh Valley, and beyond,” said Harris.
Harris joins a board of 26 directors who continue to develop the Festival into a world-class theatre, attracting patrons from all 50 states and the nation’s leading artists while contributing to the economic vitality of the Lehigh Valley.
Harris has over 25 years of experience in the areas of wills and trusts, estate planning, estate administration, and taxation. In addition to creating estate plans from the most basic to the most sophisticated wills, revocable trusts, powers of attorney, and living wills, Harris’s specialties include business matters involving corporations, partnerships, and limited liability companies and planning for business succession. Harris’s practice also includes charitable trusts and foundations; and representation of estates, trusts, and beneficiaries in disputes before the Orphans’ Court. She routinely handles the resolution of tax controversies for business and individual taxpayers before all divisions (civil and criminal) of the Internal Revenue Service and the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue. These cases often involve the resolution of estate, business, and individual audits; or collection efforts such as liens, levies, and garnishments by the IRS and state taxing authorities.
In her work as an estate planning attorney, Harris frequently structures the optimal transfer of a client’s wealth and business interests to younger generations with minimal tax consequences.
Harris serves as legal counsel to The Century Fund, and as a board member and an Executive Committee member of the Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). She is past president of the Estate Planning Council of the Lehigh Valley. From 1993 to 2000 she was an adjunct instructor of “Wills, Trusts, and Estates” at Penn State University’s Lehigh Valley Campus.
A board member since 1993 and a former officer of the Allentown Symphony, she is also a board member and past President of the Fund to Benefit Children & Youth, Inc. Harris served for 10 years on the Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority board of governors.
Harris earned her LL.M. in Taxation from Villanova University School of Law in 1991, her J.D. from American University in 1986, and her A.B., cum laude, from Bryn Mawr College in 1983.