Eric J. Coffill is a partner based in Sacramento, is the Managing Partner of the firm’s Sacramento office, and heads the firm’s Sacramento State and Local Tax Practice. His practice focuses upon state tax controversies, including state court litigation, as well as state and local tax aspects of business transactions. He has twenty five years experience in state tax matters.

From 1978 until 1983, Mr. Coffill’s practice was limited to criminal (trial and appellate) defense and civil rights litigation, both in private practice and with the Office of the California State Public Defender. From 1983 until 1992, he served on the legal staff of the California Franchise Tax Board, where he had responsibility for many of the Board’s important litigation and regulatory matters. He left the Board as a Supervising Senior Counsel in 1992 to join Morrison & Foerster and became a partner in 1995.

Mr. Coffill has been an Adjunct Law Professor at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law (1991-1999), where he taught State & Local Tax. He is a member of the faculty of the University of California’s Center for State and Local Taxation, where he has taught corporate income/franchise taxation since 1991. Mr. Coffill is the author of over seventy articles and is listed as a leading California tax lawyer in Chambers USA – America’s Leading Lawyers for Business (2007, 2008).

• Represented PacifiCorp before the California Sate Board of Equalization in a landmark case involving treatment of electricity in the California FTB corporate tax apportionment formula. In the Matter of the Appeal of PacifiCorp, No. 90027, 2002 Cal. Tax LEXIS 469, September 12, 2002.
• Represented Hoechst-Celanese Corporation in first and only business income case decided by the California Supreme Court. Hoechst Celanese Corp. v. Franchise Tax Bd. (2001) 25 Cal.4th 508.
• Represented SAIC in leading case in Maryland Court of Appeals involving right to receive interest on corporate tax refunds. Comptroller of the Treasury v. Science Applications International Corporation (2008) 405 Md. 185, 950 A.2d 766.