Arthur E. Bryan Jr., 77, whose command of tax law and effectiveness in negotiating with government auditors saved corporate clients millions while helping build Chicago’s McDermott, Will & Emery into one of the country’s largest corporate law firms, died of cancer Thursday, June 20, in the Wealshire nursing home, Lincolnshire.
Mr. Bryan was a tax lawyer who combined a knowledge of tax issues with a personality that endeared him to clients, said Alan Olson, a vice chairman of McDermott, Will & Emery and managing partner in its Chicago office.
That personality also helped Mr. Bryan negotiate affordable settlements with the Internal Revenue Service, something that endeared him to clients even more, Olson said.
“Maybe it was Midwestern charm, but he knew how to sit across the table from examining agents and appellate officers,” Olson said.
Among them were companies such as Meredith Publishing, Warner Co. and many farming, banking and hardware cooperative groups–specialized entities whose business Mr. Bryan courted in the 1970s and early 1980s as the IRS began looking into taxing them.
As the IRS was looking for a way to begin taxing cooperatives, Mr. Bryan found ways to shield them, Olson said.
For many of those cases, the issue was resolved in tax court, Olson said. Mr. Bryan and his team won them all, establishing tax law precedents for cooperatives that are still in use today.
It also substantially built up the client base for McDermott, Will & Emery, which had been a small Chicago law office when Mr. Bryan came aboard in 1954.
He served on many of its decision-making committees and headed its tax department for several years before retiring in 1989. By that time, it had become one of the largest specialty firms in the United States.
Before joining the firm, Mr. Bryan was an attorney for Union Pacific in Omaha. A native of Iowa, he was an Army infantryman in World War II, then earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Iowa in 1949 and a law degree there in 1951.
A longtime resident of Winnetka, he is survived by his wife, Betty; a daughter, Beth Perry; three sons, Arthur III, John and Daniel Bryan; six grandchildren; and three sisters, Marion Heindryckx, Barbara Tank and Rachel Burkey.
A memorial service for Mr. Bryan will be held at 4 p.m. Tuesday in Glencoe Union Church, 263 Park Ave., Glencoe.
