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EVERY CHURCH
NEEDS A
GREAT
ATTORNEY
We serve as
General Counsel to Pastors, Churches and Christian Schools.
We are called to protect the advancement of your mission. Our firm specializes in church and nonprofit law, from the formation of your organization as a legal entity, to the day-to-day maintenance of its legal and administrative affairs.
It is often the case that leaders of religious entities fail to account for the ongoing liabilities their organizations face.
Why Choose Us?
When you retain our firm, we address your organization’s issues one-by-one. As attorneys who regularly work with pastors, churches, and religious nonprofits, we take a different approach to the practice of law. We believe that the law is more than a profession. It’s a calling.
Where We've Been Featured
Religious Organizations and the Law
(“the Treatise”)
The treatise Religious Organizations and the Law (Second Edition 2017) is a comprehensive, 4000 + page, four volume work recently expanded in its 2nd edition into 37 separate areas of focus — was completed in 2016 and appeared in early 2017. Mark Goldfeder (Co-Author) and Miles Terry (Chapter Editor) have had the pleasure of working for the last few years on this project with Robert T. Smith and W. Cole Durham, Jr., Former Managing Director and Founding Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University.
The work contains a comprehensive analysis of the laws, decisions, statutes, ordinances, and regulations affecting the operation of religious entities and practical advice on entering and terminating transactions with churches.
See the work’s 81-page Table of Contents HERE. The Treatise appears in its entirety on Westlaw.
Testimonials
"I’ve known Miles Terry for 30 years and have seen him work with everyone from presidential candidates to youth pastors and all types of people in between. He is at ease and as capable with high-powered executives in a boardroom as he is with a pastor of 100 congregants. There is no one better who understands the interplay between the church and the government, and who is as experienced on both sides of that equation as Miles. If you are a church or nonprofit leader who wants to safeguard, sophisticate, or shelter your organization, you need to talk to Miles today."
"I was introduced to Miles when he was brought into a corporate crisis situation where a one-time multi-million-dollar organization experienced a major shut down in operations and they were facing bankruptcy. Miles immediately took stock of the situation, hearing and assessing all sides of a multitude of issues, and – from day one – he began to help us bring order to chaos. Working with Miles, we were able to reestablish processes and operations in ways we had been unable to do before. Critically, he held management accountable to the implementation of these new operations – a previously unattainable feat. If you are in over your head and don’t know which way to go, you need a fresh set of strategic eyes on the situation to show you which way is up. Miles is your guy."
"Miles Terry has been a close colleague and great friend of mine for nearly 20 years. The work we have done together spans campaigns, nonprofits, and legal space. Miles is simply one of the best lawyers in operatives I have known in my career. He’s also a person of incredible integrity who does what’s right even when no one is looking."
"The simple reality is that the church landscape has been and is forever radically changing. When I entered ministry in the early 1990s it was almost unheard of that a church would need an attorney other than for big ticket items such as land transactions. Today … well I cannot imagine not having an attorney for what churches face in this modern culture. My experience with Gideon Law Group is that they see through the fog of what you face because they do it every day with churches of all shapes and sizes. They help you build the proper structures to navigate your ministry context both for pastors and for the congregation as a whole. It’s more than just protecting a pastor. It’s about setting up churches so that they can thrive operationally and legally on all fronts."
"For as long as we have known each other, Miles Terry has lived at the intersection of church and government. Miles has experience on the staff of the local church, in a multi-million dollar 501(c)(3), and in front of the United States Congress and the Supreme Court. He's uniquely qualified to help your organization understand its risks and help you ensure that they do not become issues that you have to later address. "
"When we called Miles and Mark, our church bylaws had not been updated in close to 20 years and some of our formation documents had not been updated in nearly 50 years. We knew there were things that could be – and should be – improved, but we did not have the in-house resources and expertise to undertake the project. Miles came in, did a full legal audit of everything from our employment contracts to our childcare policies, and made a series of recommendations for everything we needed to address. He closed numerous gaps in our church’s operational policies that were causing potential liability that we didn’t even know we had. We are now becoming more confident in the operations of our church and have Miles, Mark, and Gideon Law Group to thank."
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