Churches & Religious Organizations

The client journey

Wherever you are in the life of your faith community.

Most congregations move through the same four chapters — only the season changes. Pick the chapter you’re walking through.

▍ 01 / Founding & Recognition

From a calling to a recognized organization.

Whether a new congregation is being formed, a faith-based nonprofit is incorporating, or a long-running ministry is finally formalizing its structure, the early decisions matter. We handle entity formation, IRS recognition, polity-appropriate bylaws, and the document set that lets a board do the spiritual work without legal worry hanging over every meeting.

→Nonprofit incorporation & 501(c)(3) recognition
→Polity-appropriate bylaws (congregational, presbyterian, episcopal, or synagogue board-of-trustees models)
→Articles of faith, doctrinal statements, and membership covenants
→Group-exemption and denominational-affiliation counsel
→Initial board orientation and fiduciary-duty training

▍ 02 / Governance & Polity

The board, the council, and the documents that hold.

Healthy governance is the quiet condition for everything a faith community does in public. We help boards and councils read their own polity faithfully, navigate the harder governance moments without losing the room, and keep the documents current with both Washington law and the tradition the community belongs to.

→Board, council, and committee governance counsel
→Conflict-of-interest, executive-compensation, and IRS compliance
→Bylaw amendments and polity-faithful procedure
→Clergy-process documentation: pastoral calls, rabbinic searches, and discipline procedures
→Affiliation, separation, and denominational-realignment issues

▍ 03 / Property, People & Programs

The legal layer behind every Sabbath.

A faith community’s legal calendar is its everyday life: the lease, the school, the camp, the contractor, the staff handbook, the volunteer policy, the visitor on the porch. We’re the lawyer who picks up the call before something gets named in a complaint — and the one who handles it carefully when it does.

→Real property: church, synagogue, and ministry purchase, sale, leasing, and joint use
→Employment counsel: clergy, teachers, and lay staff
→Religious-school, daycare, and youth-program policy
→Risk management, safe-space policy, and abuse-prevention training
→Religious-liberty, accommodation, and First-Amendment counsel

▍ 04 / Succession & Stewardship

Passing the work to the next generation.

Clergy transitions, planned giving programs, mergers between congregations, and the slow stewardship of legacy gifts and endowments — the long arc of community life sits here. We’ve walked alongside congregations and temples through the hard ones and the joyful ones, and we know how to do it without scattering the people.

→Clergy and executive transition / succession planning
→Planned-giving programs, charitable trusts, and endowments
→Congregational mergers, separations, and asset transfers
→Dissolution, wind-up, and legacy-gift stewardship
→Religious-tribunal counsel: ecclesiastical courts, beth din, and governing-body matters

Counsel for the work that has a calling.

Wherever you are in the life of your faith community.

From a calling to a recognized organization.

The board, the council, and the documents that hold.

The legal layer behind every Sabbath.

Passing the work to the next generation.

The attorneys you’ll actually work with.

Dennis Brislawn

Caleb Stewart

Paul Spencer

David Tall

James Clark

Thomas Hansen

View all attorneys

Recent work.

A growing congregation purchases its first permanent home.

Bylaw and constitution rewrite for a 75-year-old synagogue.

Comprehensive safeguarding and abuse-prevention program for a regional faith body.

Clergy transition handled cleanly — and pastorally.

Leading a church, synagogue, or ministry, and want counsel that gets the work? Let’s talk.