In 1906 Murphy opened his own firm with Yale University instructor, Richard Henry Dana Jr., a business partnership that lasted until 1921. Together they took on work such as designing the early
Loomis Chaffee campus in 1912, and successfully earned commissions to design numerous private residential and college academic buildings in the North East of the United States, in China and in Japan. Examples of their architectural work still extant include the historic administration buildings, old library and college chapel of
Rikkyo University in Tokyo. After Dana left in 1921, the firm continued as Murphy, McGill & Hamlin until 1924 when Murphy established his own independent practice. ==Noted architectural works==