M. Allison Taylor

Allison Taylor is a Shareholder and Co-Chair of Maynard Cooper’s General Counsel Services Practice and Family Business Practice within the Firm’s Corporate, Securities & Tax practice group. She is also an active member of the Firm’s Estate, Trust, and Business Planning practice group.

Allison focuses on business planning, estate and trust planning, general counsel services, and tax planning, and she is a frequent lecturer in all of these areas. Her representative clients include closely-held businesses and their owners as well as high net worth individuals and families. Allison facilitates planning strategies with her clients by counseling them on risk management and asset protection, succession and exit planning, and wealth preservation to help them achieve their goals and objectives. An integral component of Allison’s practice is ensuring that business and individual planning strategies are aligned to provide clients with holistic solutions to meet their needs. As a complement to her practice, Allison is trained in collaborative law, an alternative dispute resolution process that is particularly useful in disputes arising in the context of family and closely-held businesses.

With over 20 years of experience handling legal and business matters for clients from diverse industries including the manufacturing, services, and technology sectors, Allison also provides general counsel services to companies ranging from start-ups to mature operating and investment related organizations. During her career, Allison spent several interim years as Vice President and General Counsel for Southern Research, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization with nearly 500 scientists and engineers engaged in scientific discovery and technology development. With her broad and diverse experience, she provides expertise across the governance, operational, and strategic spectrums.

Allison is a Fellow in the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel where she currently serves on the Business Planning and Practice Committees. Her success has consistently earned industry recognition. She was named to the Martindale-Hubbell Bar Register of Preeminent Women Lawyers. Alabama Super Lawyers® has listed her as a leading attorney in Estate Planning and Probate law, and she has been consistently listed in The Best Lawyers in America© in the area of Trusts and Estates.

Allison earned her J.D. from the University of Alabama School of Law and her Master of Laws in Taxation from New York University School of Law. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Commerce and Business Administration from the University of Alabama.

Affiliations

• Alabama State Bar Association, (Taxation Section – Past Board Member)
• American Bar Association (Real Property, Probate, and Trust Law Section; Taxation Section)
• American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, Fellow, Member - Business Planning and Practice Committees
• American Institute on Federal Taxation, Past Member Board of Trustees
• Birmingham Bar Association
• Birmingham Business Alliance, Entrepreneurial Roundtable
• Birmingham Collaborative Alliance
• Birmingham Tax Forum, Past President
• Birmingham Volunteer Lawyers Program
• Estate Planning Council of Birmingham
• Women of Influence

Civic Involvement

• Hoover Soccer Club, Volunteer and Former Board Member
• International Academy of Collaborative Professionals
• YMCA, Board Member and Volunteer
• YWCA-Kids Korner

• Speaker at the 2018 American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) Summer Meeting in Chicago, IL: "Lifecycle of a Business Entity: Selected Issues Relating to the Governance, Operation, and Management of an Entity"
• August 2018: Podcast guest speaker on the topic Best Practices for the Governance, Operation, and Management of a Business Entity for ACTEC Trust and Estate Talk podcast series
• November 2017: Speaker at the 10th Annual Birmingham Business Journal's Economic Forecast Panel (Birmingham, AL)
• September 2017: Speaker at the National Business Institute, “Estate Planning from A to Z”