Ken Schaner

In his more than 40 years of private practice, Ken has represented many for-profit and non-profit entities in the corporate and tax aspects of a wide variety of agreements, transactions, financings, licenses, disputes and mergers and acquisitions. 

Ken began his career at the Internal Revenue Service’s legislative and regulations division. During his four years with the IRS, Ken worked on the 1969 Tax Reform Act and was one of the principal drafters of the then new private foundation provisions. 

In 1982, Ken co-founded Swidler Berlin, LLP. While a partner in that firm, he served as managing member and chair of the corporate group. After Swidler Berlin’s merger with Bingham McCutchen in 2006, Ken remained a partner there until 2008, when he and David Lubitz formed Schaner & Lubitz to focus on representing tax-exempt organizations. 

Since 1983, Ken has represented many tax-exempt organizations in a wide variety of matters. In the early 2000s, Ken represented the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in what is widely recognized as the first venture philanthropy transaction, with Aurora Biosciences Corporation (now Vertex), and he subsequently represented CFF in the over $4 billion monetization of the Vertex royalty resulting from that transaction. Ken has also represented the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and many other tax-exempt clients in over 500 venture philanthropy transactions and related legal matters. 

The Schaner & Lubitz firm now serves as general and outside counsel to over 75 non-profits for which it provides corporate, tax and litigation advice on the full range of issues faced by Section 501(c)(3), (c)(4) and (c)(6) organizations.