Photo by Jake Belcher

LLM in Taxation

A Third Act 

Natalie Logan (LLM in Taxation ’24) pivots from a career in the arts to opening her own law firm with her mother.

For her first act, Logan trained for years to become a professional opera singer—she holds a master’s in voice performance from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee—but the Texas native struggled to find her foothold as a performer. “I went for it one hundred percent, and I have no regrets,” she says, “but sometimes when you make your passion into your career, you can lose a little bit of what made it your passion in the first place.”

Logan left the performing world and began teaching voice and working in development, writing grants and fundraising for the Boston Opera Collaborative. She discovered she had a gift for numbers and enjoyed the research and writing involved in development work. As she pondered her next career move, one role model stood out in her mind.  

As a kid growing up in Bellville, Texas, “it was always just me and my mom,” she says. Her mother, Ruth, presided as a municipal judge for a decade before opening her own family law practice in Dallas. During summers, Logan would help out in the law office and sometimes watch Ruth argue cases in court. “My mom is an incredibly fair and brilliant person and attorney,” Logan says. “She advocates for every client as if they were family. When I retired from singing, I decided to follow in her footsteps because I saw the tremendous impact she had on people’s lives.”  

Logan entered her second act, applying to law school and winning a full scholarship to New England Law | Boston. It was there that her affinity for math connected with a purpose. “When I got to law school, I found myself attracted by the numbers,” she recalls. “I loved personal income tax, taxation of business entities, and estate planning. Pretty much from day one of law school, I knew that was the area I wanted to pursue.”  

The meticulous nature that had served Logan well in studying librettos translated easily to her legal studies. “Think of the Marriage of Figaro. It’s a four-hour opera,” she explains. “You have to memorize the entire score—and not just your part, but everybody’s parts. You need to learn the language, and you have to collaborate. [As a law student], I’d have to go over briefings with a fine-tooth comb and be able to digest a new legal language. Because of my musical training, I don’t breeze through anything.” 

After law school, Logan joined established Boston law firm Cushing & Dolan as a trust and estates attorney. The firm’s founding partner Leo Cushing (LLM in Taxation’85), also a BU Law professor, encouraged her to pursue her master’s in taxation. “I wanted the LLM in Taxation because I needed additional training to hold myself out as an expert tax attorney,” she says. “I wanted in-depth analysis skills and accounting principles to really set me apart and set me up for success.”  

Logan says BU Law’s faculty made a highly technical area of the law come to life for her. She recounts time as a student, in Professor Todd Lutsky’s course in elder law, analyzing the detailed case study of a retired couple without much income who were applying for Medicaid to help cover nursing home expenses. “Their home was their biggest asset, and they didn’t want the nursing home to take it,” Logan says. “We went asset by asset and learned how to protect each one by applying the code and learning about exceptions to it. Todd took something that seemed impossible to decipher and made it about people and their lives.” 

Last year, for her third act, Logan left Cushing & Dolan to open a joint practice with her mother, who had relocated to Boston when her daughter moved for law school. She credits the specialized education she received at BU Law with giving her the confidence to launch her own practice just one year out of law school. (Logan will receive her LLM in Taxation this August.)  

“It would have taken me a decade to gain the skills that I’ve learned in four semesters as a part-time student,” she says. “The investment in my education has enabled me to grow my practice because I can provide tax advice to a wider range of clients, specifically business owners who need assistance with entity formation, ongoing compliance, and business succession planning.”  

Logan also handles estate planning, probate, trust administration, and accounting, while Ruth focuses on family law, divorce, and child custody. “We pretty much have a separate but equal practice,” she says, “but there are times when our work overlaps. We’ve done several consultations together, which have been fun. We’re a good team.”  

Logan says the peer-to-peer dynamic suits her mom just fine. “I call my mom ‘Ruth’ at the office,” she says, “which works well because she loves telling folks we are the Logan sisters.”  

She says Logan & Logan LLP has benefited from Ruth’s many decades of experience and even temperament. “She is extremely adept at handling difficult client scenarios,” Logan says. In one case, Logan represented a widow who was embroiled in a contentious lawsuit against her stepchildren. “I had my mom sit in, and she served as a mediator, calming the parties down and giving me advice about how to react or not react to certain litigious issues.” 

The best advice from Mom? “To slow down. In this world of instant gratification, your clients, the opposing counsel—no one needs an immediate response,” Logan says. “A really thorough, thoughtful email—or even just sleeping on it and responding in the morning—will keep you out of trouble.” 

Logan hopes to eventually expand her practice and mentor younger attorneys. Although she admits the uncertainties inherent in starting a new firm can be stressful, she believes the reward is worth the risk. “I appreciate the freedom of running my own ship,” she says. “It feels good to be working for myself.”