Christopher W. Kanaga
Mr. Kanaga has an active Wills and Trusts practice, planning for personal wealth transfers and succession planning for businesses. He represents numerous corporations and partnerships, for regulatory, contractual, and tax matters. Mr. Kanaga also has extensive experience in the area of corporate finance, including mergers and acquisitions and in the organization of bank holding companies throughout the U.S.
He represents businesses in structuring “start-up” business organizations (corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies, limited liability partnerships), in the acquisition and disposition of assets, succession planning, and in commercial transactions such as leasing, financing, and related planning. Through his representation of local publishers, authors, composers, musicians and artists, Mr. Kanaga has an active copyright practice, including negotiating contracts for authors and performing artists.
Mr. Kanaga continues to represent numerous charities, service organizations, and clubs. From 1994 through 2010, he served as project manager for a $20 million construction project for a church and related monastery buildings, including management of installations of stone and bronze sculpture, mosaic, and fresco artists from the U.S., Italy, France, Ireland, England and Germany. Over the past decade he has managed multiple art exhibitions in Tuscany, Italy, in cooperation with the Archdiocese of Florence.
Mr. Kanaga was born in New York and raised in Connecticut. He graduated from the University of Denver (B.A., 1976 and J.D., 1979) and Boston University School of Law (LL.M. in taxation, 1980), and was admitted to the Colorado Bar in 1979 and the Massachusetts Bar in 1980. He lives in Orleans with his wife Susie, an accomplished painter, and has two children (both local attorneys).
He served as the Town of Orleans’ representative to the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates (Cape Cod Legislature) for 12 years. He is a past Chairman of the Town of Orleans Finance Committee and the Barnstable County Bar Association Finance Committee, and is currently serving on the Orleans Finance Committee.
John C. Kanaga
Mr. Kanaga has practiced Bankruptcy law, corporate law, and civil and commercial litigation for the past 6 years. In addition to Massachusetts, he is admitted to practice in the state and federal courts of Kansas and Missouri. Mr. Kanaga also maintains a zoning and land use practice, and a commercial law practice focused on representing corporations, partnerships and other business entities, and on resolving commercial disputes.
Mr. Kanaga was raised in Orleans, Massachusetts, and is a graduate of Nauset Regional High School. He attended the University of Kansas (B.G.S. Economics and Geography 2005), and The University of Kansas School of Law (J.D., 2010). He was admitted to the Kansas bar, the Federal District Court of Kansas and Western Division of Missouri in 2010, the Missouri Bar in 2011 and the Massachusetts Bar in 2016. He is an elected and currently serving member of the Orleans Board of Health, serves on the Board of Directors of the Lower Cape Outreach Council, and coaches youth soccer.
Mr. Kanaga is an avid platform tennis player, a poor golfer, and was a founder of Race Point Seltzer, and Hog Island Beer Company. He lives in Orleans with Stacy, his wife of 15 years, and they have three children who love the beach as much as he and Stacy do.
Courtney Kanaga Fogarty, of Counsel
Ms. Fogarty was raised in Orleans, Massachusetts, and is a graduate of Nauset Regional High School. While attending law school at Regent University, she founded the Law Students Military Network, dedicated to helping Veterans and active military personnel, and she continues to specialize in assisting those in the Armed Forces. Her extensive experience in criminal law began as an Assistant Commonwealth Attorney, in Norfolk, Virginia from 2011 to 2013.
After moving to Marion, Massachusetts in 2015, she served as an Assistant District Attorney in Plymouth County, and worked in both Superior Court, and as the Supervising ADA of the Brockton District Court. In 2019, she was awarded the prestigious Spotlight Award for excellence by the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association.
Attorney Fogarty has a breadth of trial experience in both the District and Superior Courts of Massachusetts. She is currently in private practice as “Fogarty Law” in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Admitted to the Bar in Virginia and Massachusetts, she is available at the office of Laraja and Kanaga by appointment. Call 508-317-0339.