Richard L. Fox is an American author and attorney, best known for his work with large estates, and philanthropic planning. Fox currently serves as the Founding Partner at The Law Offices of Richard L. Fox. He previously served as the head of the philanthropic and non-profit practice at the mid-sized firm Dilworth Paxson and a shareholder in the tax department of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney.

Early life

Fox was born, and grew up, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist ministe ...

and the

Temple University Beasley School of Law The James E. Beasley School of Law (known as Temple Law) is the law school of Temple University, a public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1895 and enrolls about 650 students. Student body Admission for the ...

where he received his BBA and JD. He went on to graduate with an

LLM A large language model (LLM) is a language model trained with Self-supervised learning, self-supervised machine learning on a vast amount of text, designed for natural language processing tasks, especially Natural language generation, language g ...

from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

Legal career

In 1994, Fox began his legal career at Dilworth Paxson LLP, a prestigious Philadelphia law firm.https://www.hinklaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/Worth.com-Top-100-Attorneys-2009-Dan-Peare.pdf Later in his career at Dilworth Paxson, Fox became the head of the firm's philanthropic and non-profit practice. He was named to ''Worth'' magazine's list of "Top 100 attorneys in the country representing affluent families and individuals". At Dilworth, Fox served as one of billionaire

Walter Annenberg Walter Hubert Annenberg (March 13, 1908 – October 1, 2002) was an American businessman, investor, philanthropist, and diplomat. Annenberg owned and operated Triangle Publications, which included ownership of ''The Philadelphia Inquirer' ...

's most-trusted attorneys and he continues to serve as an attorney for the

Annenberg Foundation The Annenberg Foundation is a foundation that provides funding and support to non-profit organizations. Overview The Annenberg Foundation was established by Walter H. Annenberg in 1989 with $1.2 billion, one-third of the assets from the sale o ...

. In 2005, Judge William C. Koch Jr. cited an article written by Fox in the majority opinion in the case of ''Tennessee Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy v. Vanderbilt University''. Fox has also served as an advisor to the

University of Miami School of Law The University of Miami School of Law (Miami Law or UM Law) is the law school of the University of Miami, a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. Founded in 1926, it is the oldest law school in South Florida, graduating its first ...

's ''Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning,'' a conference for estate planning professionals. He chaired the Chartered Adviser in Philanthropy Program at

The American College of Financial Services The American College of Financial Services (The American College) is a private online university focused on professional training for financial practitioners and located in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. It offers several professional certifica ...

from 2008 to 2010. In 2015, Fox was elected as a fellow of the

American College of Trust and Estate Counsel The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) was established in 1949. It is a professional organization of lawyers, fiduciary counsel and law professors, peer-elected to membership by demonstrating the highest level of integrity, commi ...

, an exclusive

professional society A professional association (also called a professional body, professional organization, or professional society) is a group that usually seeks to further a particular profession, the interests of individuals and organisations engaged in that prof ...

of attorneys and law professionals with expertise regarding trust and estates. A year later, in 2016, Fox led a project where H.F. Lenfest donated the

Philadelphia Media Network The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC (formerly Philadelphia Media Network (PMN)) is an American media company. It owns ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' and ''Philadelphia Daily News''. The company is owned by The Philadelphia Foundation, a nonprofit or ...

, which owns ''

The Philadelphia Inquirer ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'', often referred to simply as ''The Inquirer'', is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded on June 1, 1829, ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is the third-longest continuously operating da ...

'' and Philly.com to

The Philadelphia Foundation The Philadelphia Foundation is a community foundation that serves the metropolitan Philadelphia community. The five primary counties served are Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery. It is one of the oldest and largest communit ...

. Lenfest described Fox as the "architect of the deal." Following the restructuring of the Philadelphia Media Network, Fox began advising other local newspapers to restructure as non-profits and serves as counsel to The Philadelphia Foundation. According to

Steven Waldman Steven Waldman is an American journalist. He is president and co-founder of Report for America—a national service program that deploys emerging journalists to local newsrooms. He is also the founder and president of Rebuild Local News, a nonp ...

, the president and co-founder of

Report for America Report for America (RFA) is a service program for emerging journalists in the United States. Participants are placed in local newsrooms across the country. It was launched in 2017 as an initiative of The GroundTruth Project, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit ...

, there is "probably no lawyer out there who knows more about the intersection of local news and the nonprofit tax code han Fox" Fox left Dilworth Paxson LLP. to become a shareholder at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney in 2016. While at Buchanan, Fox remained a legal force in Philadelphia. In 2017, he spearheaded efforts to expand the

Community College of Philadelphia The Community College of Philadelphia (CCP) is a public community college with campuses throughout Philadelphia. The college was founded in 1965 and is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. It offers over 100 associate ...

and during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

he established and maintained an employee relief fund for employees at the

Union League of Philadelphia The Union League of Philadelphia is a private club founded in 1862 by the Old Philadelphians as a patriotic society to support the policies of Abraham Lincoln. As of 2022, the club has over 4,000 members. Its main building was built in 1865 a ...

. In 2021, he worked with

to help develop a bipartisan component in the

Build Back Better Act The Build Back Better Act was a bill introduced in the 117th Congress to fulfill aspects of President Joe Biden's Build Back Better Plan. It was spun off from the American Jobs Plan, alongside the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, ...

to provide tax credits for local newspapers. Additionally, he was a consultant for the writing of the

Local Journalism Sustainability Act The Local Journalism Sustainability Act () is a bill introduced into the United States House of Representatives on July 16, 2020, by Representative Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ-2) that would give tax credits to local newspapers. It was introduced in 202 ...

. In 2022, Fox announced that after six years at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, he would be leaving to start his own solo practice: The Law Offices of Richard L. Fox. In this capacity, Fox is better able to focus on his niche speciality of estate and philanthropic planning while having direct control over fees and hourly rates. In a statement Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney said that they “anticipate continuing to collaborate with Richard as he moves to this new phase in his career.” Judge Emin Toro writing for the

United States Tax Court The United States Tax Court (in case citations, T.C.) is a Federal judiciary of the United States, federal trial court court of record, of record established by US Congress, Congress under Article One of the United States Constitution, Article ...

cited Fox's treatise ''Charitable Giving: Taxation, Planning, and Strategies'' in the 2023 case ''Gerhardt v. IRS''.

Writings

Fox is the author of ''Charitable Giving: Taxation, Planning, and Strategies,'' a

legal treatise A legal treatise is a scholarly legal publication containing all the law relating to a particular area, such as criminal law or trusts and estates. There is no fixed usage on what books qualify as a "legal treatise", with the term being used broad ...

, published in 2008, on charitable giving and retirement plans. He is also a co-author of the 2012 book, ''Preserving a Home for Veterans'', which chronicles Fox and others, who took on the

Department of Veterans Affairs The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing lifelong healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers an ...

for leasing parts of property, donated to veterans, to private entities such as oil drillers. Fox sits on the advisory board and serves as an author for ''Estate Planning'' magazine, which is published by

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational corporation, multinational content-driven technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and maintains its headquarters at 1 ...

. He is also a frequent legal commentator for

Bloomberg News Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg T ...

, ''

'' and Leimberg Information Services. In addition, he has provided legal commentary to ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'' and ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fox, Richard L Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century American lawyers 21st-century American lawyers New York University alumni Pennsylvania lawyers People associated with Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney