Insight

The Business Owner’s Go-To Lawyer

Passionately representing owners to achieve the best possible results, Austin-based litigator Joseph Brophy is “all business.”

Hohmann, Brophy, & Shelton
JS

Justin Smulison

May 31, 2017 03:59 PM

In the last nearly 25 years, Joseph F. Brophy has earned an outstanding reputation as a litigator, handling virtually all types of civil lawsuits before judges, juries, and arbitrators. Brophy’s business litigation success has resulted in a demand from some business clients for him to handle their business legal affairs, a demand that has increasingly grown and comprised more and more of his practice for the last 10-plus years. Brophy attributes his distinct edge—in and out of the courtroom—to his substantial experience and training as a litigator, first and foremost, and second, to his substantial transactional/business law experience over the last decade. Hence, as his mantra suggests, he provides the very best representation for his clients “from the proverbial boardroom to the courtroom.”

Brophy’s clientele has included a wide range of business owners, investors and executives, commercial real estate development firms, financial investment and advisory firms, medical service companies, franchisees, law firms, lawyers, law professors, and doctors.

Brophy leads a diverse practice that handles all facets of business law, which is best illustrated by the following non-inclusive sample of legal matters for which he has served as lead counsel:

● Business divorces, many of which were resolved via business transactions and/or litigation.

● Business formations, from the structuring of same through fundraising and ongoing operation.

● Nearly all aspects of real estate transactions and litigation.

● Securities litigation.

● Drafting contracts and litigating contractual disputes.

● The development and implementation of a legal platform for clean energy financing.

● Protecting and litigating trade secrets and proprietary and confidential information.

● Drafting and litigating employment and professional services agreements.

● The structuring and modification of various debt and equity financing arrangements.

● The purchase and sale of businesses and litigation arising therefrom.

● The prosecution and defense of professional malpractice litigation.

● The prosecution and defense of serious personal injury claims.

As a former equity partner of two high-profile Austin law firms who has also served as general counsel to commercial real estate developers and investment and advisory companies, Brophy certainly knows the ins and outs of business law on both the litigation and transactional fronts.

“I take a great deal of pride in the quality of my work and in the results I obtain for my clients,” he says, “and I fight to win. These are critical matters that can involve millions of dollars and peoples’ careers. That’s why my practice is largely a 24/7 pursuit.”

A longtime Texan who was born in Queens, New York, Brophy is the grandson of four Irish immigrants who arrived in the United States with merely the clothes on their backs. That tendency toward making one’s own way in the world was passed on to Brophy; he graduated with his undergraduate degree in finance from the University of Texas and earned his J.D. at St. Mary’s School of Law, where he graduated magna cum laude, was a member of the John Harlan Academic Honor Society, and was an editor on the St. Mary’s Law Journal—all of which was primarily self-funded. And now, Brophy applies that steadfast determination to winning for his clients.

Brophy has been selected for inclusion by The Best Lawyers in America© for commercial litigation since 2013, named a Texas Super Lawyers Top Rated Business & Securities Litigation Lawyers-Austin, and was twice recognized by Princeton Global’s “Top 100 Lawyers in America.”

“My clients know—and my prospective clients can rest assured—that I always do everything I reasonably can to ensure they’ll get the most favorable results,” Brophy says. “I get a strong feeling of accomplishment from playing a central role in helping my clients achieve the best possible business deals or outcomes to a dispute, in or outside the courthouse.”

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