Brian Carter Boyd

Of Counsel

After graduating cum laude from Harvard Law School, Brian came to Alaska planning to stay for one year—and has lived here ever since.  After clerking for Justice Warren Matthews of the Alaska Supreme Court in 1981-82, Brian was a founding member of the firm in 1985.  Brian has spent his entire career counseling Alaskan businesses, including Native Corporations, oil field service contractors, commercial fish processors, landowners, and other businesses and individuals on commercial and transactional matters ranging from contracting issues and land use to oil and gas and corporate governance, and nearly everything in between. 

Brian is one of the most knowledgeable attorneys in the state on issues related to development of Native lands.  He negotiated access and related agreements for the Alpine Oil Field and for oil and gas development in the adjacent “Billion Dollar Fairway” on the North Slope.  Brian has since implemented, applied, and built on those agreements almost continuously over the past 30 years.  He has been instrumental in developing the legal strategies needed to help his clients achieve ANCSA’s twin goals of allowing Alaska Native communities to use their resources to improve the economic quality of life through resource development while preserving subsistence resources and a subsistence lifestyle.  Brian became Of Counsel to the firm in 2020.