W. Marshall Sanders

Advisory Board Council

Attorney, Law Offices of W. Marshall Sanders, LLC Marshall Sanders focuses his law practice on the representation of nonprofit organizations and individuals with complex charitable giving needs. For the first 17 years of his legal career he was an attorney with Atlanta’s two largest law firms, King & Spalding LLP (1999-2005) and Alston & Bird LLP (2005-2016), where he represented some of the region’s largest foundations, hospitals, colleges and universities, and other tax-exempt organizations. He also advised clients on tax-efficient estate planning, assisted corporate and individual fiduciaries with estate and trust administration matters and structured various types of lifetime and testamentary charitable transfers. Mr. Sanders now assists nonprofit clients, both big and small, with the full range of legal needs specific to those organizations, including: formation of new charities and charitable remainder and lead trusts; obtaining and maintaining tax-exempt status; nonprofit governance and ethics; compliance with private foundation rules; public v. private charity status; nonprofit structures, relationships and affiliations; unrelated business income tax issues; lobbying and political activities; international charitable transactions and operations; and representation in Internal Revenue Service and Attorney General proceedings. Mr. Sanders speaks and publishes regularly on exempt organization and estate planning issues. Mr. Sanders is an AV-rated lawyer, is a fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, and has been listed in Best Lawyers in America every year since the nonprofit/charities category was established. He is the past chair of the nonprofit law section of the state bar and chaired the bar legislative committee which drafted Georgia’s current endowment law. Prior to entering law school, Mr. Sanders held a number of positions in government and politics, which included service as a naval intelligence officer, a senior member of the staff of Senator Wyche.