Forty Under 40: M. Sean Evans

After earning his Master of Laws in taxation from New York University School of Law in 2011, Sean (pronounced “seen”) Evans moved to Northwest Arkansas to join the Friday firm.

Prior to NYU, he spent almost four years at Jones Day in Dallas, a global organization considered one of the largest law firms in the world by most any metric.

While there, Evans, who is also a CPA, worked diligently on issues that appeared above the newspaper fold, including the Chrysler bankruptcy in 2009, and the U.S. government’s response to the credit crisis.

Evans practices corporate law, tax and mergers and acquisitions for Friday’s Rogers office, and serves as outside counsel to multiple closely held businesses in Northwest Arkansas, including NanoMech Inc. and Specialized Real Estate Group.

Evans, a first-generation lawyer, graduated from Harding University in 2001 with an accounting degree. After being accepted to 10 different law schools, he accepted a full-tuition scholarship — and a stipend — to attend Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where he graduated magna cum laude in 2005 and was a member of the law review.

A Kansas native, Evans serves on the board of Bentonville Christian Academy, and terms himself a “large” fan of the Kansas Jayhawks basketball team.

His advice for up-and-comers in the legal profession is simple: show up.

“We are in the service business, and so 90 percent of the battle is just being responsible, and attentive and responding.”

Evans lives with his wife and three children (ages 6, 4 and 2) in Bentonville.