John A. Biek is a member of Neal Gerber Eisenberg’s Tax Practice Group. John divides his practice between state and local tax and unclaimed property (escheat) matters.

John represents large publicly traded and privately held businesses in controversies, transactional matters and tax planning involving multistate corporate income/franchise taxes, gross receipts taxes, sales and use taxes, and other business privilege taxes. He has represented clients in state tax audits and litigation before courts, administrative law judges and departments of revenue throughout the United States.

As one of the nation’s leading lawyers in the emerging field of state unclaimed property laws, John devotes a substantial part of his practice to representing and advising clients in a broad range of industries, including manufacturing, retailing, distribution, aerospace, technology, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, financial and investment services, telecommunications, healthcare, insurance, utilities and transportation businesses, with complex multistate unclaimed property audits, litigation, voluntary disclosure and transactional matters. He helps clients determine whether their business operations are producing unclaimed property liabilities and how those operations can be restructured to minimize unclaimed property exposure.

John is an adjunct professor of law in the IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law Graduate Tax Program. He currently serves as the chair of the Unclaimed Property Subcommittee of the American Bar Association Tax Section’s State & Local Tax Committee. He is also a frequent speaker and author on state tax and unclaimed property issues. He is co-author of a chapter entitled, Federal and State Tax Issues for Energy Companies: A Case Study, in a book entitled, Energy and Environmental Trading: U.S. Law and Taxation (1^st Ed. 2008), a publication focused on discussions of the new energy and environmental markets and their developing framework of corporate, regulatory, tax and financial law. He is author of the Unclaimed Property chapter in a treatise entitled, State Business Taxes (1^st Ed. 2009), a publication designed to help corporate, tax and trial counsel and accountants deal with all aspects of state tax matters, from constitutional issues to the taxation of digital goods.

John was elected in 2007 as a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.

John is recognized as a leader in the 2008, 2009 and 2010 editions of Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business (recommended in “National: Tax Controversy” and "Illinois: Tax"). He has been selected by his peers for inclusion in the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 editions of The Best Lawyers in America and in the Chicago Bulletin Publishing Company’s Leading Lawyers Network. He is AV^® Peer Review Rated (the highest possible rating) via the Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings.

John received his J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center in 1987, where he served as executive editor of The Tax Lawyer. John graduated with a B.S. from Yale University in 1984.

John was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1994 and the Ohio bar in 1987. He is admitted to practice in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

• Ohio, 1987
• Illinois, 1994

• Yale University (B.S., 1984)
• Georgetown University Law Center (J.D., 1987) cum laude