Michael J. Wenig has been named the 2027 Best Lawyers® “Lawyer of the Year” for Litigation and Controversy – Tax in the Triad area. It is the second time he has received the recognition, following his selection in 2021.
Lawyer of the Year is awarded to a single attorney in each practice area in each metropolitan area, chosen through peer review. For 2027, Mike is the only attorney recognized in his practice area across the Triad.
The award is for tax controversy: representing taxpayers before the IRS, state revenue departments and the courts. For a business owner, though, that is only half of what makes Mike useful.
Mike is a licensed CPA as well as an attorney. Alongside his tax planning and controversy work, he handles corporate, LLC and partnership law, business acquisitions and sales, and affordable housing development. The practical result is that the attorney defending a tax position is often the same attorney who structured it. He knows how the deal was built, why the entity was chosen and what the parties intended, because he was there when those decisions were made.
That is what deep tax experience inside one firm looks like. It shapes the work long before anything reaches a courtroom, and it means a client does not have to explain their own history to a new lawyer when a question turns into a dispute.
Mike earned his J.D. from Indiana University School of Law, cum laude, in 1986, following a B.S./B.A. from Northeastern University, cum laude, in 1980. He is admitted in the state and federal courts of North Carolina and before the United States Tax Court. He is a member and former Chair of the North Carolina Bar Association Tax Council, a member of the NCACPA Tax Committee and its IRS liaison, and a member of the American College of Tax Counsel. He speaks often on entity selection, multi-state operations, partnership taxation, S corporations and sales tax, and has twice received the NCACPA best annual speaker award.
Congratulations, Mike.