McGinn Law, PC

Focus and practice areas

McGinn Law, PC is a Massachusetts firm that handles estate planning, tax law, business law, mediation and probate administration. It has a law office in Cambridge and a second address in Braintree. The firm works with individuals and with businesses.

That combination is unusual in a small firm. Tax controversy work and estate planning draw on overlapping knowledge: asset valuation, transfer timing, the paperwork that follows a death or a sale. Business law sits next to both. A person who forms a company will eventually think about who inherits it.

The firm covers Boston, Metro West and the South Shore. The two addresses line up with that geography, one inside Cambridge and one south of the city.

Tax controversy work

McGinn Law represents individuals and corporations before the Internal Revenue Service, the Massachusetts Department of Revenue and the U.S. Department of Justice, Tax Division and Criminal Division. That last item narrows the field considerably. Plenty of firms file returns and answer notices. Fewer name the DOJ Criminal Division among the bodies they appear before.

The firm describes its approach to disputes as a negotiation-based model. In my opinion that is a fair description of how most tax matters actually end. Audits are resolved through correspondence, document production and conference, and only a small share reach litigation.

How these matters generally proceed

General context helps here. An IRS examination usually opens with a letter naming the tax years and the items under review. The taxpayer produces records. If the examiner proposes an adjustment the taxpayer disagrees with, the file can go to the IRS Independent Office of Appeals, which is staffed separately from the examination function.

State matters run on a parallel track. The Massachusetts Department of Revenue has its own assessment, abatement and appeal procedures, and the deadlines differ from the federal ones. A taxpayer facing both at once is managing two calendars.

Criminal tax referrals are a different category again. They involve different burdens of proof and different lawyers on the government side, which is why representation before the DOJ Tax and Criminal Divisions is worth listing separately from ordinary audit work.

Estate planning and probate

The estate planning work covers wills, trusts, durable powers of attorney, healthcare proxies and irrevocable life insurance trusts. That last instrument is a tax planning tool as much as an estate one. It exists to keep policy proceeds outside a taxable estate, and it has to be drafted and funded with that purpose in mind.

Naming irrevocable life insurance trusts on a practice page tells a reader something. It suggests the estate work is written by someone comfortable with the tax code, which fits the rest of what the site sets out.

Probate administration at the firm covers opening an estate and appointing a personal representative. In Massachusetts those are the first formal steps after a death when assets need to pass through the court. The personal representative gathers assets, gives notice to creditors, pays valid claims and files the accounts. Where a will's validity is contested, the process takes longer.

Business law and mediation

Business work at the firm runs across formation and later growth stages, and includes deal structures and vendor and partner contracts. Formation questions get decided early and then live with a company for years: entity type, ownership split, what happens when someone leaves.

Contract work with vendors and partners is the routine legal weather of an operating business. Payment terms, delivery obligations, what counts as a breach and who bears which risk. These are the documents that get read closely only when something goes wrong.

Mediation across three areas

The firm's mediation services cover business disputes, divorce and probate matters. Mediation puts a neutral third party between people who disagree, with no power to impose an outcome. The parties keep control of the settlement.

Probate and family disputes suit that format because the people involved often have to keep dealing with each other afterwards. Siblings settling a parent's estate, or parents sharing custody, have a relationship that outlasts the case. Business partners in a dissolution sometimes do too.

The firm also handles Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Chapter 7 is the liquidation chapter: a trustee is appointed, non-exempt assets are collected and sold, and qualifying debts are discharged. Massachusetts debtors choose between state and federal exemption schedules, and that choice affects what a filer keeps.

How the team is built

The site names one attorney, Corain McGinn. He practices in tax and tax controversies, mediation, corporate and transactional law, estate planning and bankruptcy law. Originally from Ireland, he is a member of the Massachusetts and New York Bars.

His academic record is unusually layered. He holds an LL.B. from Queen's University Belfast, a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School, an LL.M. in Taxation from Boston University and an M.B.A. from Georgetown University. Two law degrees from two legal systems, plus a tax specialization and a business qualification.

The LL.M. in Taxation is the credential that matters most for the work the firm advertises. It is a postgraduate degree taken after the J.D., and it signals sustained study of the tax code rather than general practice familiarity.

McGinn was formerly with Goodwin Procter LLP and did strategy consulting before that. He is a past Co-Chair of the Foreign Lawyers Committee at the Boston Bar Association. That role fits the biography: a lawyer who qualified in one jurisdiction and requalified in another has direct experience of what the committee addresses.

What a prospective client should expect

The site describes McGinn Law as a small Massachusetts firm run by attorneys with business backgrounds and advanced degrees in U.S. tax law, and says clients deal directly with their attorneys. As a reviewer, that is the claim I would treat as the practical one. In a firm of this size, the lawyer a client meets is the lawyer who does the work.

There are trade-offs either way, and prospective clients should weigh them against the matter at hand. A large firm brings depth of bench. A small one brings continuity and a single point of contact. Someone facing a DOJ Criminal Division referral or a complex estate should ask about capacity and timeline in the first conversation.

The site does not state a founding year, and no title such as founder or partner is given for Corain McGinn. Contact runs through a form on the website. Facebook and LinkedIn appear as link labels in the site's page text.

McGinn Law, PC lists five practice areas across two Massachusetts locations, with one named attorney holding degrees from Queen's University Belfast, Suffolk University Law School, Boston University and Georgetown University.