Prior to attending law school, Chris worked as a public accountant, and he maintains CPA licenses in North Carolina and Colorado. Chris’ accounting and tax background provides a strong foundation for his work across the firm’s practice areas.

Chris frequently works with start-up companies, professional practices, and owners of closely-held businesses across an array of industries. He commonly provides counsel regarding entity organization and formation, mergers, acquisitions, reorganizations, and dissolution; shareholder and owner disputes; third-party and intra-family purchase and sale transactions; employment and independent contractor issues; contract drafting, review, and negotiations; commercial lending transactions; taxation issues; and succession planning. Chris also regularly represents individuals in contract review and negotiations, particularly in the context of business and real estate investment, employment, compensation, non-compete, and severance agreements.  

In his commercial real estate practice, Chris counsels his closely-held business clients, families, and trust and estate fiduciaries with respect to purchase and sale and lending transactions and lease drafting, review, and negotiations. Chris also assists in various facets of the firm’s other real estate engagements from resolving title issues to consulting on tax matters.

Chris’ estate planning practice entails drafting documents such as wills, powers of attorney, health care directives, and a variety of trusts to best achieve his clients’ objectives, including business succession planning, managing diverse assets, and minimizing gift, estate, and generation-skipping taxes.

Chris’ estate administration practice consists of representing executors and personal representatives throughout the probate process utilizing, as applicable, North Carolina’s summary administration, collection by affidavit, and formal administration procedures. Chris also prepares fiduciary income tax and gift tax returns and complex accountings for estates and guardianships and represents fiduciaries and beneficiaries with respect to matters of will and trust interpretation and ongoing administration issues.