Hatef Behnia is a partner in Los Angeles office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where he is a member of the firm’s Tax Practice Group.  During his 30 years of practice with the firm, Mr. Behnia has specialized in taxable and tax-free mergers and acquisitions, spin-offs, restructurings, joint ventures, debt and equity financings, derivative securities, partnership transactions, start-up and venture capital investments, and taxation of special entities such as S corporations, REITs and financial institutions.  He has successfully represented taxpayers before the Internal Revenue Service in cases involving significant audit adjustments.

Mr. Behnia graduated from Reed College in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics.  He received his MBA in 1977 from Stanford Graduate School of Business and received his law degree in 1981 from the University of Southern California Law Center.  Mr. Behnia was a member of the Order of the Coif and Note and Article Editor of the Southern California Law Review.

Mr. Behnia has been selected by Chambers and Partners as a Leading Tax Lawyer in California for its 2005 through 2018 Chambers USA America’s Leading Business Lawyers directories.  He has been named one of the Leading Tax Lawyers by U.S. Legal 500  for 2008 through 2018.  From 2011 to 2019, Mr. Behnia has been selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© in the fields of Litigation Controversy – Tax and Tax Law.  He was also recognized by Who’s Who Legal in the field of corporate tax for 2018.