Practice:

• Chairman, Tax Controversy
• Co-Chair, Tax
• Corporate
• International Practice
• Private Client
• Trusts & Estates

Bar Admissions:

Massachusetts

Experience:

Although Mr. Medwed has a breadth of experience in all areas of the tax law, his practice has concentrated in structuring complex corporate and real estate transactions.

In addition, he is the architect of some of the most sophisticated estate plans produced by Burns & Levinson. He has extensive experience in dealing with partnerships, tax-exempt entities, business trusts, nominee trusts, voting trusts and other less common entities as well as conventional C and S corporations, trusts and estates.

Howard Medwed has been involved in a number of complex business transactions, including like-kind exchanges, spin-offs, mergers and other types of tax-free reorganizations, corporate liquidations, real estate syndications, partnership adjustments, compensation planning, retirement planning and litigation settlement planning.

He also practices before the Internal Revenue Service and Massachusetts Department of Revenue, at all levels, and has been involved in tax litigation. Some of his recent cases have involved valuation, business expense and payroll trust fund issues. His practice also includes advising accountants and tax preparers on reporting and compliance questions.

Memberships:

• American Bar Association, Tax Section
• Boson Bar Association, Tax Section, International Law
• Massachusetts Bar Association, Tax Section
• Boston Tax Council

Additional Information:

• Howard has been practicing tax law since 1966 (since 1968 at Burns & Levinson).
• Howard is a manager of Burns & Levinson Asset Management LLC and chairman of the firm's Investment Policy Committee. He is a registered investment adviser.
• As the result his professional affiliations, Mr. Medwed has experience in tax legislative drafting and tax policy issues. He has written and lectured extensively for organizations such as the Federal Tax Institute of New England and other tax education groups. He has also served as a judge in the Jessup International Law Competition.
• Interested in public and international affairs from his days at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, he and his wife, Mameve, a published novelist and teacher of creative writing, have served as a host family for international students at Harvard for over twenty-five years. This has given him an understanding of foreign legal systems and lawyers as well as an acquaintance with a network of Harvard Law School graduates in a number of countries.
• Active in Cambridge (Massachusetts) civic affairs, he has served as an officer of the Cambridge Civic Association, the Harvard Square Defense Fund, his local neighborhood association, and his local Democratic Ward Committee. He is a commissioner of the Avon Hill Neighborhood Conservation District Commission. He is also on the board of a non-profit organization concerned with the maintenance of Winthrop Park in Harvard Square. In connection with these activities, Mr. Medwed is a frequent spokesperson for neighborhood interests before the Cambridge Board of Zoning Appeals, Planning Board, Historical Commission, License Commission, City Council and other local boards and served as the campaign treasurer for Kathleen Born, a Cambridge city councilor. He has been a delegate to the Massachusetts State Democratic Party Convention for several years.
• Mr. Medwed can read French and Italian.

Education:

• LL.B. degree, Harvard Law School
• LL.M., Taxation, Boston University School of Law
• A.B., cum laude, Princeton University

Awards:

• Mr. Medwed was selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® (2013) in the field(s) of Tax Law. Best Lawyers® is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey in which more than 41,000 leading attorneys throughout the country cast almost 3.9 million votes on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their practice areas. Inclusion in Best Lawyers® is considered a singular honor.
• Mr. Medwed was selected for inclusion in Massachusetts Super Lawyers ® (2005 and 2004). Super Lawyers and Rising Stars employ an annual jurisdictional selection process. Only five percent of lawyers in the state were selected to the Super Lawyers list and 2.5 percent to the Rising Stars list. The listing appears annually in the November issue of Boston magazine and in New England Super Lawyers.

Quotes:

Recent Articles and Publications:

Speaking Engagements: