Frazier & Deeter’s Business Beat: Davis Butler, BUTLER | MERSEREAU
Davis Butler, Managing Partner at BUTLER | MESEREAU, joined Roger Lusby to chat about the work his firm does for small businesses and other organizations. Davis discussed his work in healthcare, specifically physician practices, the changing healthcare industry landscape, and advice for practices preparing for an exit. Davis also talked about his previous work with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), effecting change in sports organizations to protect athletes from abuse, his work in name, image, and likeness issues (NIL), and much more.
Business Beat is presented by Alpharetta CPA firm Frazier & Deeter and is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®
BUTLER | MERSEREAU LLP
BUTLER | MERSEREAU is a boutique corporate and trusts and estates law firm with offices in Atlanta and Jacksonville. The firm was founded in 2014 by B. Davis Butler and another partner, who began their practices at Alston & Bird, a large law firm based in Atlanta. Adam G. Mersereau, who started his practice at McKenna Long & Aldridge, now Dentons US, joined the firm as a partner in 2017.
The firm was created with the goal of providing outstanding legal services to a special group of clients looking for great value from its lawyers. Their lawyers are former big-firm lawyers and general counsel with a strong commitment to providing the highest possible quality of legal services and personalized care to every client regardless of its size. They are trusted advisors, creative problem solvers, excellent drafters, and thoughtful risk takers.
Together, their attorneys are licensed to practice in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and South Carolina.
Davis Butler, Managing Partner, BUTLER | MERSEREAU
Davis Butler began his legal career in 1992 as a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Robert B. Propst in the Northern District of Alabama. In 1993, he joined the practice of Alston & Bird LLP (A&B), a large firm based in Atlanta, Georgia, as a healthcare/medical product liability litigator. After two successful jury trials, Davis joined A&B’s healthcare mergers, acquisitions, and securities team.
After years as a corporate transactional lawyer at several firms, Davis joined the International Olympic Committee (IOC) staff to manage and negotiate international partnership deals as part of the world’s largest sports sponsorship program – the IOC’s TOP Programme. Davis spent ten years at the IOC in a joint business and legal role (as Senior VP of Marketing Development) with offices in Atlanta and Lausanne, Switzerland. During this time, Davis negotiated and managed partnership transactions on behalf of Olympic parties valued at just under US$9 billion. He has negotiated and drafted sponsorship, broadcast rights, license, supply, acquisition, representation, and service agreements on behalf of sport properties around the world. He also has managed intellectual property issues around the world, and he has represented the IOC twice before the European Commission in Brussels on matters relating to antitrust issues in international sport sponsorship arrangements. While at the IOC, Davis did business in thirty nine countries, and he managed a team of lawyers overseeing Olympic marketing rights agreements in over 190 countries.
Davis left the IOC in 2010 to become a founding partner in Encompass International Network, LLC, an international sports marketing and legal network comprised of Olympic experts from North America, Europe, and Asia. At that time, Davis also re-entered the private practice of law, and he now represents a variety of corporate entities (especially in the healthcare, marketing, and sport industries) in mergers, acquisitions, private securities offerings, and general corporate matters. He has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Georgia, and he is an owner of a variety of sport and healthcare businesses. He has started nine different for profit and non-profit businesses giving him special insight into the issues facing start-ups and early-stage companies.
He attended Vanderbilt University and graduated with honors in 1988. He received his law degree in 1992 from the University of Alabama School of Law where he was a Junior and Senior Editor of the Alabama Law Review.
Davis is currently licensed to practice law in Georgia and Alabama.
The Alpharetta office of Frazier & Deeter is home to a thriving CPA tax practice, a growing advisory practice and an Employee Benefit Plan Services group. CPAs and advisors in the Frazier & Deeter Alpharetta office serve clients across North Georgia and around the country with services such as personal tax planning, estate planning, business tax planning, business tax compliance, state and local tax planning, financial statement reviews, financial statement audits, employee benefit plan audits, internal audit outsourcing, cyber security, data privacy, SOX and other regulatory compliance, mergers, and acquisitions and more. Alpharetta CPAs serve clients ranging from business owners and executives to large corporations.
Roger Lusby, host of Frazier & Deeter’s Business Beat, is an Alpharetta CPA and Alpharetta Office Managing Partner for Frazier & Deeter. He is also a member of the Tax Department in charge of coordinating tax and accounting services for our clientele. His responsibilities include a review of a variety of tax returns with an emphasis in the individual, estate, and corporate areas. Client assistance is also provided in the areas of financial planning, executive compensation and stock option planning, estate and succession planning, international planning (FBAR, SFOP), health care, real estate, manufacturing, technology, and service companies.
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