Burns & Levinson announced today that partner Robert J. O’Regan has been selected as one of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s 2016 Lawyers of the Year for his outstanding professional accomplishments over the past year. O’Regan won two landmark decisions in 2016 – Pfannenstiehl v. Pfannenstiehl and Guardian v. Migell.

The Pfannenstiehl case focused on the issue of trust assets as marital property in divorce proceedings, and was widely considered the biggest family law case of the decade. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) decision overturned an Appeals Court ruling that Curt Pfannenstiehl had to pay his ex-wife approximately $1.4 million that was attributed to his interest in a discretionary spendthrift trust established by his father. The case is now the definitive law on trust interests for division of marital assets in Massachusetts, and also serves as guidance for every one of the 35 plus states that use a similar equitable division statute.

In Migell, O’Regan won a major appellate victory as the conservator for Alice Migell, whose nearly $5 million estate was pilfered by one of her sons. The November 2, 2016 decision by the Massachusetts Appeals Court upheld judgments from Middlesex Probate and Family Court that returned real estate and sale proceeds for other real estate that the son received, and kept, as trustee of a family trust. The decision also upheld criminal contempt convictions against the son and his wife, Andrew and Kai Sun Migell, for their transferring assets to put them out of reach to satisfy what was owed. O’Regan received awards against the son and daughter-in-law for the legal fees caused by their misconduct by the appellate and trial courts.

“We’re very proud that Bob O’Regan was selected for this prestigious list,” said David Rosenblatt, managing partner at Burns & Levinson. “Clients turn to Bob because he is an incredibly talented, powerful and dedicated litigator who never stops fighting for what is right. The stellar work he did for many clients in 2016, including the high profile Pfannenstiehl and Migell cases, was extraordinary, and no one is more deserving of this recognition.”

O’Regan will be honored at MLW’s Leaders in the Law Event on March 2, 2017.

About Burns & Levinson LLP

Burns & Levinson is a full-service law firm with more than 125 attorneys based in Boston, with additional offices in Providence and New York, as well as in the Merrimack Valley/North Shore, Metrowest and South Shore areas of Massachusetts. The firm has grown steadily and strategically throughout the years and has become a premier law firm with regional, national and international clientele. The firm has expertise in corporate law, finance, venture capital, private equity, intellectual property, labor and employment, tax, bankruptcy, real estate, design and construction, public-private partnerships, energy, environmental, business litigation, government investigations and white collar crime defense, and a large private client group, including estate planning, probate and trust litigation, divorce and other family law issues. For more information, visit Burns & Levinson at www.burnslev.com.