Stephen Abanise serves as a deputy attorney general at the California Department of Justice, Charitable Trusts Section in Los Angeles, California, where he investigates and prosecutes financial abuse, mismanagement and fraudulent solicitation. He previously served as a senior trial attorney at the IRS, Office of Chief Counsel in Laguna Niguel, California, where he litigated federal court cases involving fraud, disputed tax deficiencies, and collection and refund matters in collaboration with the Department of Justice. He also completed a one-year attorney management detail as an assistant to the associate area counsel (supervisory trial attorney) at the IRS, Office of Chief Counsel, supervising junior and senior level trial attorneys and paralegals as they litigated court cases.
Prior to becoming a trial attorney, he served as an estate and gift tax attorney within the Small Business/Self Employed Division of the Internal Revenue Service, where he examined and investigated the estate and gift tax returns of high net-worth individuals and families. Stephen has completed law clerkships with both the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office Post-Conviction Litigation and Discovery Division, and the Healthcare Fraud Division.
Stephen earned a JD from Indiana University’s Robert H. McKinney School of Law, where he was named to the Order of the Barristers of the Moot Court Society. During law school, he represented the law school nationally at the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s Giles Sutherland Rich Memorial Moot Court competition in Chicago, Illinois, where he was a semi-finalist. He also earned a Master of Health Administration (MHA) degree from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he was inducted into Upsilon Phi Delta Honor Society, and a Master of Social Work (MSW) from the University of Southern California. Stephen is admitted to the State Bar of California and the Central District Court of California.
Learn more about Professor Abanise in his Faculty Spotlight
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