McDermott Vet Andrea Kramer Debuts Tax, Regulatory, ESG Boutique

Big Law veteran Andrea Kramer is launching a Chicago tax and regulatory boutique, designed to help crypto and other clients navigate the shifting legal terrain.

The ASKramer Law firm will focus on regulatory, tax, commercial, and governance matters that arise in trading environments, according to the firm. The digital assets, cryptocurrency, and energy-heavy shop emerges amid swirling tax and and regulation questions in the cryptocurrency world.

Kramer has spent 30 years at McDermott Will & Emery, where she established and led the financial products, trading and derivatives group and was a partner in the energy services group.
She’ll continue to advise hedge funds, energy companies, insurers, and businesses in all stages of their life cycles. Her practice will focus on securities, commodities, digital assets, emerging asset classes, energy production and distribution, and environmental, social, and government matters.

Kramer said she’s excited to guide clients through a crypto space “in flux” following the events of 2022, including the near $1.4 trillion collapse of the digital assets market following last year’s stablecoin crisis.

The implosion of cryptocurrency exchange FTX has reinvigorated calls to better regulate the digital assets industry. An upcoming federal court rulingin a lawsuit by the Securities Exchange Commission against payments company Ripple Labs Inc. could determine whether the SEC has the power to police crypto.

FTX’s demise has also raised tax questions around how investors of the bankrupt crypto exchange can take their losses after the shutdown, Kramer said in an interview.

“The guidance we have from the IRS and the Treasury is minimal and in some places nonexistent, so people need to figure out what is the correct tax answer for how to present their gains and losses on their 2022 tax returns,” Kramer said.

She opened her own shop because she was ready for a change, Kramer said. She also nodded to the mobility that comes with a boutique practice.

A longtime advocate against workplace gender discrimination, Kramer’s forthcoming book “Beyond Bias: The PATH to End Gender Inequality at Work” will be released this spring.

“With the opportunity to juggle and continue to address diversity issues, there is more flexibility on my own than I would have had if I stayed in Big Law,” Kramer said.