Brian R. Murphy

My Approach

As a business and tax attorney, my goal is to help clients manage their legal budget sensibly and effectively. I strive to provide relevant, scaled solutions by listening carefully and thoroughly assessing each client’s problem. Believing that the best and most creative legal solutions come out of a collaborative process that values the client’s knowledge of the problem just as much as my legal know-how, I work together with my clients to accomplish their long-term goals through smart, cost-effective strategies.

Practice Areas

Business Transactions
 I concentrate in counseling closely-held businesses and their owners and nonprofit organizations. I deal with mergers, acquisitions, reorganizations, stock sales and redemptions and closely-held business planning. I also assist with formation and structuring issues, including decisions with respect to the selection of the proper entity for affecting business and investment transactions.

Nonprofit and Exempt Organizations 
I provide counsel for nonprofits on formation, governance and board practices, tax planning, operational and compliance matters, donor assistance and planned giving, and endowment management.

Tax Planning and Litigation
With years of experience both as a CPA and practicing tax attorney, I have deep knowledge of the tax code and utilize that knowledge in all my work. I offer proactive, efficient tax counsel and strategic planning through all aspects of business transactions. Should tax issues arise that need to be resolved or litigated, I also represent clients before the Internal Revenue Service and United States Tax Court. 

Executive Compensation
I assist companies and executives with executive compensation planning including planning relative to section 409A and 457(f).

Experience

• Served as Dinse’s President and Managing Partner from 2010-2015.
• Served a key role in Vermont’s adoption of the first L3C statute in the country, testifying before the Vermont legislature concerning the legal features of the new “low profit limited liability company” model under the statute.
• Partner at Young & Conway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP in Wilmington, Delaware.
• Active in forming, merging, dissolving and otherwise operating Delaware corporations, limited partnerships, and limited liability companies.
• Six years as a certified public accountant with the Boston office of Ernst & Young, LLP.

Professional Affiliations

• Best Lawyers in America (2013-2020)
• Chambers USA, Chambers & Partners (2006-2019)
• American Bar Association – Section of Taxation (Exempt Organizations Committee)
• Vermont Bar Association – Business Associations Law Committee
• American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
• Director and past President of Vermont Society of Certified Public Accountants
• Past member of Vermont Business Roundtable
• Leadership Champlain, class of 2000

Recognition

• American Jurisprudence Prize Award: Corporate Taxation (1989)
• Received Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants “Certificate of Achievement” for passing CPA exam at first sitting (1985)