Bruce is a member of the Alaska and Washington Bars. He earned law degrees from both the University of Washington (J.D.) and New York University (LL.M. Taxation) and clerked for a federal appellate judge at the U.S. Court of Claims. While at the Court of Claims, Bruce worked on the landmark case in which the Lakota Sioux sought the return of their sacred ancestral lands in the Black Hills of South Dakota. His tax practice includes both transactional and controversy work, as well as the drafting of Settlement Trust agreements and other tax planning documents unique to the Alaska Native Community.

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Bruce has defended several multi-million dollar IRS audits (including mediation and “fast track” appeals) and also, has been lead tax counsel in over twenty IRS National Office private letter rulings, many of which have concerned either Alaska Native Corporations or Alaska Native Settlement Trusts.

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Bruce is the author of the leading two law review articles concerning Alaska Native Settlement Trusts. The first (“Understanding and Making the New Section 646 Election for Alaska Native Settlement Trusts,” 18 Alaska Law Review 219 (Duke University 2001)) concerns Tax Code section 646, which is the primary provision that governs taxation of Settlement Trusts, while the second article (“The 2017 Tax Act and Settlement Trusts,” 35 Alaska Law Review 1 (Duke University 2018)) discusses the provisions that now permit an Alaska Native Corporation to deduct contributions to a Settlement Trust, which in turn permits that Trust to pay tax-free distributions and other benefits to its beneficiaries (typically, the shareholders of the Native Corporation that established the Trust).

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Bruce has also written extensively about nationwide federal tax topics for Bloomberg BNA Tax Management. His most recent work for Bloomberg BNA is Income Taxation of Native Americans (including Alaska Natives), which was published in 2019 and is the only comprehensive treatise on the federal income taxation of indigenous peoples residing within the United States. His other writings for Bloomberg BNA include treatises on Involuntary Conversions, Home Ownership and Timber Transactions and seven chapters of Bloomberg BNA’s Tax Practice Series.

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Bruce has served previously as the New Decisions Editor of the Journal of Taxation and has been a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel since the early 1990s.