Berluti McLaughlin & Kutchin LLP

Focus and practice areas

The firm works across business law, real estate, civil litigation, employment matters and estate planning. Its business side covers contracts, entity formation, commercial finance, shareholder matters and mergers and acquisitions. On real estate, the firm handles commercial and residential transactions, leasing, and land use and zoning. That places transactional work and courtroom work under one roof.

The litigation practice reaches business and employment disputes, shareholder and partner disputes, and real estate conflicts. Robert R. Berluti, one of the founding partners, handles complex civil litigation that includes wage and hour cases, intellectual property, construction and personal injury matters. He has appeared in state and federal courts, before administrative agencies, and in alternative dispute resolution.

In my opinion, the firm groups its work around business and real estate, and the same lawyers who draft the deals take the disputes that grow out of them. The attorney pages show this overlap, since several partners list both a transactional field and litigation.

How the firm came together

Berluti McLaughlin & Kutchin LLP took its current form in January 2011. Robert R. Berluti, John T. McLaughlin and Edward D. Kutchin formed it. Each of the three name partners brought an existing practice into the new firm.

The firm traces its history to Berluti's law office, which opened in 1985. Kutchin's firm, Kutchin & Rufo, P.C., formed in 1988. McLaughlin entered a partnership in 1997. Those three lines merged into the 2011 firm, and the About Us page sets out the sequence.

The firm keeps two offices in Massachusetts, one in Boston and one in Hingham. Both sit within the same practice, and the team works out of the two locations.

How the team is built

The Meet Our Team page lists fourteen lawyers: seven partners, one senior associate and six associates. Each partner carries a defined field, and several carry more than one.

The partners

John T. McLaughlin earned a B.A. from Tufts University and a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School. His work covers business law, employment law, estate planning, intellectual property and real estate, including the buying and selling of businesses and business succession planning. Edward D. Kutchin holds a B.A. from Muhlenberg College, a J.D. from New England Law | Boston and an LL.M. in Taxation from Boston University School of Law. He handles business law, securities law, real estate and business litigation.

Michael A. Bednarz earned a B.S. from Saint Michael's College and a J.D., cum laude, from Suffolk University Law School. He concentrates on employment law and business law, including employment discrimination, wrongful termination, wage disputes and partnership matters. Matthew J. Dunn holds a B.A. from Boston College and a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School, and he also works with The Dunn Law Group. His practice covers real estate, business law and civil litigation, along with landlord tenant matters and appeals.

Kerry R. Northup earned a B.S. from Northeastern University and a J.D. from Villanova University School of Law, where he served as Managing Editor of Outside Articles on the Villanova Law Review. He handles business law, landlord tenant matters, securities law and employment law. Christopher J. Davidson attended Bowdoin College and Roger Williams University School of Law, and his practice centers on litigation.

Associates and senior associate

Carlton S. Smith, the senior associate, works in trust and estates, and handles estate planning, trust formation and business succession. Julie E. Bruce earned her law degree from Suffolk University Law School and handles appeals, business, employment and real estate matters. Matthew A. Gens works in litigation. The associate group also includes George Carayannopoulos and Alyssa Coen.

Suffolk University Law School appears in the background of several of these lawyers, which gives the firm a shared local footing. The partners between them draw on schools in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and beyond, so the roster mixes regional and out-of-state training.

What the practice covers day to day

The business practice starts at entity formation and carries through the life of a company. The firm drafts contracts, arranges commercial finance and advises on shareholder matters and mergers and acquisitions. It also handles business succession planning, which matters for the family-owned and closely held companies the firm names among its clients.

Shareholder and partner disputes make up part of the litigation work. These matters often turn on the operating agreement or shareholder agreement signed when a company starts, and on the duties that co-owners owe each other. A closely held company has no public market for its shares, so a falling-out between owners tends to end in a negotiated buyout, an arbitration or a court fight over value. The firm handles this kind of conflict in closely held and family-owned businesses.

Real estate work

The firm handles purchases and sales of commercial and residential property, leasing, and land use and zoning questions. Zoning and land use work brings the firm before municipal boards, since a project often needs a variance or a special permit before it can go ahead. Leasing work covers the terms that landlords and tenants negotiate, and landlord tenant disputes show up across several of the attorney pages.

Who the firm works with

The firm names a broad client base: entrepreneurs, executives, family businesses, individuals, lenders, insurers, privately held corporations and larger companies. That range suits a practice that does both deals and disputes, since the same client that forms a company may later need help defending it.

The senior associate and partners including McLaughlin handle estate planning and private client work. Estate planning matters usually cover wills, trusts and the documents that direct assets after death, and they link back to the business succession work when a family company is the main asset. Trial advocacy and private client work both appear on the Practice Areas page, which rounds out the transactional and real estate offering.

As a reviewer, I read Berluti McLaughlin & Kutchin as a Massachusetts business practice with real estate and litigation running through most of the attorney pages. Most of the named lawyers list business law or real estate as a core field, and the firm pairs those with employment, estate planning and dispute work handled by the same team.