Practice Areas

Our estate planning practice encompasses all aspects of traditional estate planning, including the preparation of wills and revocable trusts as the operative legal instruments for disposition of property at death. In addition, a comprehensive estate plan incorporates planning for critical life events short of death, such as chronic or severe illness, debilitating injury, and loss of legal capacity. We prepare and advise our clients in the use of health care directives and financial powers of attorney, among other legal means, to ensure a client’s wishes for the client’s physical care as well as the client’s financial needs are addressed well in advance of a crisis.

In addition to the “basic” estate plan, high net worth individuals and families frequently require complex tax, wealth transfer, business succession planning and related reporting. We regularly counsel clients and, when appropriate, assist them to establish and implement specialized trusts and business entities to accomplish advanced planning objectives, including:

• Large and complex wealth transfer transactions, including sales to grantor trusts (“IDGTs”), grantor retained annuity trusts (“GRATs”), spousal limited access trusts (“SLATs”), qualified personal residence trusts (“QPRTs”), charitable remainder trusts (“CRTs”), charitable lead trusts (“CLTs”) and use of so-called “dynasty trusts”
• Family limited partnerships and limited liability companies (“FLPs”), including advice related to formation, governance and sale or gift of interests in the same
• Planning with life insurance, including formation of life insurance trusts and use of split-dollar and other life insurance financing arrangements
• Federal tax compliance, including the preparation of federal gift tax returns and representation of clients before the Internal Revenue Service in audit of these transactions
• Business succession planning, including allocation of wealth among participant and non-participant family members, the use of buy-sell agreements and life insurance, pre-liquidity event planning

Thankfully, most of us rarely serve as a fiduciary, personal representative, or trustee for a deceased a loved one. The process can be daunting. We assist with all aspects of complex estate administration and provide administrative support to the degree desired. Among our services:

• Commence the “probate proceeding” and manage the probate administration process, including filing necessary pleadings and reports with the applicable court, providing required notices to heirs and publishing notice to creditors
• Assist with initial identification of the deceased person’s property and debt, inventorying and securing the same
• Evaluate creditors’ claims and advise regarding payment of debts
• Analyze the testamentary plan and recommend time and manner of satisfying various interests
• Determine whether a federal estate tax return is required and assist with all aspects of return preparation, including valuation of publicly-traded securities, engagement of appraisers for unmarketable assets, advise regarding allocation of tax exemption, deduction and credits
• Respond to Internal Revenue Service audit questions and represent the fiduciary in audit and appeals process
• Upon conclusion of the estate administration, assist with the transfer of property from the probate estate or the administrative trust to those person’s entitled to it

We advise our clients on structuring their charitable giving in a way that balances the needs of their family, their charitable goals and the related income and transfer tax benefits. When our clients wish to make significant charitable gifts, whether during life or at death, we help them explore their options for using charitable split-interest trusts, donor-advised funds and private foundations to maximize both the charitable and tax impact of the gift, or to create or continue a family culture of charitable giving. We also assist individual and family clients with the administration and termination of charitable trusts and private foundations. For example, we may advise clients with respect to:

• How testamentary planning with a significant gift to charity or the creation of a charitable split-interest trust will impact estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes as well as the financial security of family members;
• Tax and trust and estate administration issues that may arise when a client wishes to give family business assets to a private foundation; or
• How the creation of a charitable remainder trust may be used to defer income tax recognition upon the sale of a low basis asset.

We represent individuals who are entering one of three types of agreements with a partner, prospective spouse or current spouse (a “partner”): cohabitation agreements (between domestic partners), premarital agreements (between parties engaged to be married), and marital agreements (between married parties). If you engage us to represent you in this context, you alone will be our client. Your partner must have separate counsel. Our work typically begins with an initial, in-person meeting. We will advise you of your and your partner’s rights and obligations to one another absent an agreement, identify issues and risks arising from your unique circumstances (e.g., a blended family, wealth disparity, late in life marriage), and work with you to formulate your primary objectives. In this process, we will work with you to:

• Develop a thorough and accurate financial disclosure (required for the validity of the agreement)
• Formulate key terms of a proposed agreement or, if an agreement has already been proposed by your partner, key terms of an appropriate counterproposal
• Support you through the delicate process of negotiating the terms of an agreement with a partner
• Work and communicate regularly with counsel for your partner to respectfully resolve areas of disagreement
• Draft, review and revise the agreement to accurately and clearly reflect your intentions

Our approach to cohabitation and marital agreements is inherently collaborative. We understand that the agreement and the experience of negotiating is foundational to your relationship. We are regularly engaged to represent clients where:

• One party has significant wealth, either in the form of family assets and inheritance or wealth that is self-made.
• One or both parties’ wealth is held primarily in irrevocable trusts.
• Marital planning for performing artists and professional athletes.
• Representation of the less propertied party in complex situations and devising creative solutions to address long term financial security of the less propertied party.

We advise trustees on all aspects of trust administration. Our expertise covers a broad range of issues, including:

• A trustee’s duties to beneficiaries
• Reporting requirements and a beneficiary’s requests for information
• Fiduciary liability and risk mitigation
• Investment standards and diversification
• Income tax planning for the trust and beneficiaries
• Modifying or “decanting” an existing trust
• Seeking court construction / interpretation of the meaning of the trust agreement

We represent trustees in pre-litigation conflict resolution when disputes arise between the trustee and one or more beneficiaries or between or among the beneficiaries regarding their beneficial interests. Often, we participate as subject-matter experts along-side litigation counsel when conflict results in an actual court proceeding.

Our partners are regularly engaged to render expert opinions and to provide supporting testimony in the context of contested divorce proceedings, trust litigation and estate litigation. Topics upon which we may opine include:

• Adequacy of financial disclosure supporting a premarital or marital agreement
• Standard of professional practices in the premarital and marital agreement process
• Standard of professional practice in representing a client with diminished capacity
• The exercise of appropriate discretion in making distributions or adherence to investment standards in the context of a trust dispute