The POWER List: Sara G. Neill

Capes Sokol, St. Louis

When Sara Neill took the reins of The Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis as its president in mid-2019, little did she know what her term held in store for her in 2020.

During the pandemic, Neill juggled the demands of family life, her work as a shareholder and chair of Capes Sokol’s Tax Controversy and Litigation Practice Group, and her leadership role at BAMSL — all with aplomb.

Neill earned her law degree in 2003 from the University of Missouri. She joined her firm fresh out of law school. She later earned her LL.M. in Taxation in 2015 from Washington University School of Law.

Neill represents individuals and businesses in civil and criminal federal and state tax matters involving the Internal Revenue Service and the Missouri Department of Revenue.

In one of her most high-profile cases in 2015, Bross Trucking Inc. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, she successfully defended her client, a family-owned trucking company in Hannibal, from an alleged tax liability of $2.7 million. She also helped to secure more than $170,000 in attorneys’ fees for her firm, which she said at the time was “almost unheard of.”

She is a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel, and she also serves on The Bar Plan Mutual Insurance Company’s Board of Directors.