Samuel Perkins is a founding partner at Brody, Hardoon, Perkins and Kesten, LLP. He has tried dozens of cases in state and federal courts in Massachusetts and Vermont, and in the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.

Practice Areas

Mr. Perkins represents corporations, individuals, and municipal boards in the following areas:

• commercial law
• employment law
• non-competition agreements
• professional malpractice
• will contests and probate dispute
• intellectual property
• insurance coverage
• civil rights
• land use

Mr. Perkins is also an experienced mediator and graduate of the Commonwealth Mediation Services training program. He has mediated and arbitrated numerous cases and has represented clients in hundreds of mediations and arbitrations.

Representative Cases

Commercial Law

    Failed Merger: Mr. Perkins represented a computer systems integration company with a national reputation that had recently been acquired by a major office products company. After the acquisition, the office products company violated the purchase agreement by altering the new subsidiary’s business plan, making it impossible to achieve revenue goals and retain staff. Mr. Perkins negotiated two years of interim agreements designed to salvage the working relationship of parent and subsidiary without harming the subsidiary financially. Ultimately both companies sued each other in federal court and the subsidiary was shut down. Mr. Perkins then litigated the claims of the subsidiary’s founders and settled the claims very favorably just before trial.

    Misappropriation of Corporate Opportunity: Mr. Perkins represented an American subsidiary of a European manufacturer in exposing a plan by the President of the subsidiary to go into competition with his employer and misappropriate trade secrets. Mr. Perkins and associate Tom Campbell designed a strategy to separate the President from the company without exposing the company to liability.

    Web Site Theft: Mr. Perkins and associate Tom Campbell successfully blocked a disgruntled web site consultant from misappropriating a site the consultant had established for a public relations business. The consultant had taken control of the site and associated email system and was sending falsified email messages and posting defamatory materials in an attempt to destroy the business of the public relations firm.

Employment Law:

    Protecting Competition: Mr. Perkins successfully defeated a preliminary injunction motion by a major fundraising consulting firm, which sought to prevent former top fundraising consultants from leaving the firm and working for a major competitor.

Will and Probate Disputes

    Contest Among Heirs: After exhaustive attempts to settle disputes over the distribution of an estate, Mr. Perkins successfully obtained an injunction to freeze estate assets held by one heir until an accounting resolved ownership, and to compel that heir to give the Executor sufficient funds to pay the estate taxes due.

    Will Contest: Mr. Perkins represented the named executors when a wife attacked her late husband’s last will. The widow claimed her husband was legally incompetent when he concluded she was being unfaithful and cut her share of his estate.

Civil Rights

    Anti-Palestinian Discrimination: Mr. Perkins represented a Palestinian national who was demeaned, threatened and vilified by co-workers and the General Manager of the employer, and negotiated an extremely favorable settlement shortly before the case was scheduled for trial.

Abuse of Women and Children

    Defense of Abused Daughter: Mr. Perkins represented a young professional whose father sued her, trying to block her plan to tell relatives that her father had sexually abused her for ten years. Mr. Perkins referred his client to an experienced therapist and developed a strategy that coordinated the litigation with the client’s personal goals in therapy and in dealing with her family.

Prior Experience

Mr. Perkins’ legal career began in 1976 in Vermont as an Assistant Attorney General, where he enforced Vermont’s environmental laws on land development, water pollution and river reclassification. He moved to private practice in 1978 with the White River Junction firm of Welch, Graham, Perkins & Manby, where he was a civil and criminal litigator and represented state and local agencies in environmental litigation. In 1983 he returned to Massachusetts and practiced with Morrison, Mahoney & Miller, focusing on legal malpractice, unfair trade practices, insurance coverage and personal injury. In 1995 he co-founded Brody, Hardoon, Perkins & Kesten, LLP.

Teaching and Publications

Mr. Perkins has served as an instructor for the Harvard University Trial Advocacy Workshop and the National Institute for Trial Advocacy Northeast Regional Program. He also has been a clinical instructor for Hofstra University Law School, and was an Adjunct Professor of Law at Vermont Law School, teaching trial practice and evidence.

Education

Mr. Perkins received his A.B. cum laude from Harvard College. He received his J.D. from Boston University School of Law in 1976.

Professional and Community Affiliations

Mr. Perkins is admitted to practice in Massachusetts, the United States District Courts for the Districts of Massachusetts, Vermont and Pennsylvania, and the First Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a member of the Massachusetts and Boston Bar Associations. He has served on numerous non-profit Boards of Directors, including the Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society and the Milton Library Foundation. He is a past co-president of the Milton Academy Parents Association.