People

Nancy Ortmeyer Kuhn chairs the Exempt Organizations Practice at Shulman Rogers and co-chairs the firm’s Tax Practice, bringing deep experience in federal and state tax matters, IRS disputes, nonprofit law, and complex litigation. Her clients range from domestic and foreign high-net-worth individuals and corporations to nonprofit organizations and limited liability entities throughout the United States.

Before entering private practice, she served as an attorney-advisor at the United States Tax Court and spent ten years at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), primarily litigating on behalf of the government. This gives Nancy a distinctive vantage point when advocating for clients in audits, appeals, and collections matters involving complex structures such as joint ventures and domestic and international affiliated entities.

As one of the region’s leading authorities on exempt organizations, Nancy counsels public charities and private foundations under Section 501(c)(3); social welfare and business league organizations under Sections 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6); labor organizations under Section 501(c)(5) and social clubs under Section 501(c)(7). Her work spans philanthropic planning, Internal Revenue Code compliance, and complex multi-entity nonprofit structures incorporating for-profit subsidiaries, single-member charitable LLCs, lobbying vehicles, and political action committees. She also serves as an expert witness and advisor on syndicated charitable conservation easements and nonprofit board governance and has published extensively on conservation easement issues in Bloomberg Tax.

IRS disputes carry real emotional and financial weight, and clients consistently describe Nancy’s approach as calm, systematic, and reassuring in high-stakes situations. She is as focused on minimizing strain as she is on achieving results.

Active in both the legal community and the arts, she serves on the Board of Directors of the Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia and as a Board member of 131 & Counting, an organization celebrating women in the U.S. Congress. She is also President of the Washington Chorus, which performs at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Music Center at Strathmore, and Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.

She earned her LL.M. from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and her J.D. from the University of Colorado Law School. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Minnesota and a B.A., magna cum laude, from Cornell College. She is admitted to practice in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Colorado, and before the U.S. Tax Court, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits.