He was admitted to the California Bar in January, 1981 and is also a member of the New York Bar Association. He began practicing law as a prosecutor with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office. After much success and 7 years of litigation experience, Phil went on to get his Masters in Tax Law from New York University where he graduated in 1989. After NYU, he was a tax associate with Beck & Casello in Southern California, and was subsequently recruited to head up the tax litigation department of a Ventura County law firm -- Staker & Gose. He became a partner in the firm Gose, Panitz and Lechman, and in 1997 he formed his own law firm. Today, Mr. Panitz is the managing partner of Panitz & Kossoff, LLP, a Federal Tax litigation law firm that litigates tax cases nationwide.

In addition to his many years of experience and his tax law education, Mr. Panitz has been a lecturer and writer on taxation issues for years. He has a periodic column in Citations magazine and he has written for The Los Angeles Daily Journal on tax related topics.

He is frequently in demand as a speaker to business groups, professional associations, collegiate classes, and various sections of the Bar Association, where he addresses tax and corporate issues.