Emily R. Lambright

West Virginia

Bowles Rice LLP
600 Quarrier Street
Charleston, WV 25301
United States

Tel: (304) 347-1124

Email: elambright@bowlesrice.com
Web: www.bowlesrice.com

Professional Biography

Emily Lambright focuses her practice on employee benefits and qualified retirement plans, estate and gift tax planning, federal taxation, tax-exempt organizations and non-profit law. She is also a certified public accountant.

Emily represents individuals and businesses by counseling them on income and estate tax issues, business succession planning, entity formation and selection, and transactional tax matters. She also provides guidance on benefits matters and executive compensation to clients.

She received her law degree in 2009 from the West Virginia University College of Law, where she was a member of the Moot Court’s National Team and a recipient of the Order of the Barristers. Emily earned her bachelor’s degree and a master’s in business administration degree (MBA) from WVU.

Education

  • J.D., West Virginia University College of Law (2009)
  • National Team, Moot Court
  • M.B.A., West Virginia University (1999)
  • B.A., Anthropology and Sociology, West Virginia University (1998)

Admissions

  • Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia
  • Kentucky Supreme Court
  • U.S. District Courts for the Northern and Southern Districts of West Virginia

Honors, Awards & Recognition

  • Recognized by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Business Lawyers (Tax)
  • Recognized by The Best Lawyers in America in Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law (2025 Edition)
  • Recognized by The Best Lawyers in America: Ones to Watch (Tax Law), 2022-present
  • Named by West Virginia Super Lawyers as a Rising Star (Employee Benefits), 2019
  • West Virginia University College of Law Order of the Barristers

  • Kentucky Bar Association
  • West Virginia Society of CPAs
  • Board of Directors, West Virginia Pensions Oversight Board
  • Charleston Estate Planning Council
  • President, West Virginia Tax Institute
  • Vice Chair, Taxation Committee, West Virginia Society of CPAs
  • Member, Tax Committee, West Virginia State Bar

Bowles Rice’s Benefits Attorneys represent clients in a wide variety of matters relating to employee health and welfare, retirement and executive compensation plans.  We counsel clients as they design, establish, maintain and terminate these plans, and we represent them in the context of mergers and acquisitions, IRS or DOL audits and litigation.

We regularly team with other professionals, including other lawyers, accountants and actuaries, to provide clients with complete and effective representation.  Our Benefits Attorneys have decades of combined experience in employee benefits law, a unique accomplishment for a regional law firm. This allows us to provide valuable services comparable to those offered by the “big city” law firms clients typically turn to for employee benefits matters, but at much more competitive rates.

Bowles Rice is a professional service organization, contributing to the success of our clients and the vitality of our communities through advocacy, counsel, leadership and service.

Our firm was founded in Charleston, West Virginia, in 1920 by three lawyers engaged in the general practice of law.  Through success, expansion and merger, we have grown to become a full-service law firm with more than 100 attorneys serving clients in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia – and throughout the nation – from six strategically located, regional offices.

We are committed to quality and professionalism in all that we do. Our firm has earned the highest AV peer-review ranking from Martindale-Hubbell, long considered the authoritative resource on the legal profession.

In the 2025 edition of its Best Law Firms publication, US News & World Report recognizes Bowles Rice nationally and regionally in over 40 different areas of law.  Chambers and Partners, a well-respected global peer-ranking organization, lists Bowles Rice among its “Top Ranked” law firms, and noted in the 2019 edition of Chambers USA, “They are excellent and I enjoy working with them.”  The 2025 edition of The Best Lawyers in America© includes 39 Bowles Rice attorneys. And Benchmark Litigation, which publishes a definitive guide to America’s leading litigation firms and attorneys, has recognized Bowles Rice as its “West Virginia Law Firm of the Year” for seven consecutive years (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2024).