Attorney Ernest Tate is the principal attorney at Tate & Associates, Attorneys-At-Law, in Atlanta Georgia where his practice focus is in the areas of Public Finance, Corporate Finance, Estate Planning, Real Estate Law, Tax Credits or LIHTCs, Immigration Law and General Civil Practice. He earned a BSc degree, Cum Laude, from the University of Tennessee in 1987 and a Juris Doctor Degree, Cum Laude, from the Howard University School of Law in 1990, where he obtained numerous academic distinctions, including the Corpus Juris Secundum award for outstanding scholastic achievement. That same year, Attorney Tate was admitted to the Ohio Bar Association and in 1994 was admitted to the State Bar of Georgia.

Attorney Tate has represented school districts, hospitals, state and local governments and municipalities, as well as corporate entities and individuals in various complex matters and transactions at both national and international levels.

Prior to establishing Tate & Associates in 1995, Attorney Tate worked for one of Ohio’s most prestigious law firms and a national fortune 100 firm, Calfee Halter & Griswold in Cleveland Ohio, where he was an associate attorney with the municipal finance group from 1990 to 1995.

He has worked on numerous financing transactions that required his firm’s legal opinion in order to enable investment vehicles (municipal bonds and tax credits) to enter various stock exchanges in the United States for trading. Additionally, he has counseled numerous not-for-profit entities in various complex transactions and syndications that required his firm’s legal opinions relative to the entities maintaining their 501(c)(3) status in good standing with the IRS.

Tate & Associates proffers the following summary of remarkable professional accomplishments for the firm:

In 1999 Attorney Tate represented Green Forest Community Development, Inc., a 501 (c)(3) organization that he incorporated in Georgia, in the issuance by Dekalb County Georgia of its housing revenue bonds and in the syndication of low income housing tax credits for the acquisition and rehabilitation of The Forest At Columbia Apartments titled: $8,500,000 County of DeKalb Georgia Housing Revenue Bonds, Series 1999 (The Forest At Columbia Project). The tax credits generated an additional $1,500,000 for a total project cost of $12,000,000. The bonds and tax credits were sold in the stock market and the revenues generated from the sale utilized to acquire The Forest At Columbia, a 161 unit apartment complex located at I-20 and Columbia Drive in Decatur Georgia.

In 2001 Attorney Tate successfully represented a group of 23 Cab Drivers in Atlanta who won the $90,000,000 “Big Game Lottery” Jack Pot against more than 27 plaintiffs who sued to have the funds frozen by the Fulton County, Georgia Superior Court. The plaintiffs had more than seven lawyers on their side.

In 2011 Attorney Tate represented a foreign oil services company in its acquisition of two 200 ft water depth rated accommodation lift boats and one supply vessel in the United States for a total value of $46,000,000. The lift boats were in turn transported by the Heavy Lift Vessel, ‘Dockwise-Swift’, to their exploration destination in the oil and gas fields in the Atlantic ocean off the West Coast of Africa where they are currently in operation for Exxon Mobil’s upstream unit.

Attorney Tate currently represents numerous oil and gas services companies in West Africa in transactions relative to acquisitions of various oil and gas vessels, including but not limited to, mobile offshore drilling units or MODUs (commonly known in the industry as oil rigs), Offshore Supply Vessels or OSVs, Dive Support Vessels and liquified natural gas (LNG) Carriers.

Attorney Tate is a member of the American Bar Association, active in the ABA’s Section of International law and Practice, and is also a member of the ABA’s Forum on Affordable Housing and Community Development Law. Attorney Tate also maintains memberships in the State Bar of Georgia, the Ohio Bar Association (inactive status) and the United States Tax Court Bar. He is a member of the US District Court Bars in those States and practices before the 11 th Circuit US Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. He has been listed in the Blue Book and the Red Book in connection with attorneys who are qualified to issue legal opinions on investment vehicles to enable them to enter the stock exchange for trading.