Dawson Taylor

Dawson Taylor Email: dtaylor@cairncross.com Phone: (206) 254-4431

Dawson uses creative and personalized planning strategies to provide solutions to entrepreneurs and investors as they seek to accumulate, preserve, and transfer their wealth. He develops sophisticated plans to minimize the impacts of taxation upon the value created by entrepreneurial activities. His extensive experience includes mergers and acquisitions, structuring tax-friendly (and deferred) exchanges and inter-generational wealth transfers. Recently, he has emphasized technology enterprises, including venture funds, start-ups, and mature technology companies. Dawson has helped owners and executives of hundreds of enterprises with strategies for maximizing the capital gains potential in their activities and with wealth transfer and business succession strategies.

He has been named among the top ten lawyers in Washington by the readers of Washington Law & Politics magazine, among the best lawyers in Seattle by Seattle Magazine and was named one of Seattle's "Top Business Lawyers" by Seattle Business Monthly in 2008.

Dawson is a member of the Washington State Bar Association, and holds a CPA license in Washington. He served as trustee of Seattle Opera from 1982 to 2008, and as President of Seattle Opera Foundation from 1991 to 1999; he presently serves as vice president and legal counsel to the Seattle Jazz Guitar Society. He's also a pretty good jazz musician; his well-reviewed CD It Could Happen to You is widely available.

Education: Georgetown University (B.S./B.A., 1969); Wayne State University Law School (J.D., 1974).



Dawson's assistant, Sue, can be reached via email, or by phone at (206) 254-4404.

<< Back to Our People