We guide individuals and families through some of life’s most critical inflection points, including transitioning a family business, structuring substantial lifetime gifts or intra-family sales, developing support structures to plan for incapacity, and crafting testamentary estate plans. In concert with clients’ other trusted advisors, we work to thoughtfully design plans that strike the desired balance of preserving family wealth, achieving overall tax efficiency, and allowing flexibility and support for the next generation without impacting existing relationships.
In addition to the preparation of wills, revocable trusts, powers of attorney, and other traditional estate planning instruments, our team has substantial technical experience designing and implementing a wide variety of complex wealth transfer strategies. We also understand that there is value in simplicity. Although any number of strategies may provide tax savings or other benefits, we appreciate that tolerance for risk and complexity varies. For many, the optimal plan is one that the client understands and can be implemented with minimal disruption to day-to-day life.
We provide comprehensive legal services to philanthropically minded clients and charitable organizations.
Our clients generously support a broad spectrum of causes. For our clients who are charitably inclined, we assist in exploring available vehicles and developing an impactful overall giving plan to create an enduring family legacy of strategic philanthropy. A variety of tools and structures are frequently utilized, including the creation of private foundations, establishing endowments, charitable trusts, direct giving arrangements, optimizing routine lifetime giving to public charities and donor advised funds, and in-kind contributions (including pre-sale gifts of privately held stock).
We also advise charitable organizations throughout all stages of their organizational life cycle, from formation, funding, governance, expenditure responsibility, and tax compliance to division or dissolution.
Navigating new and complex responsibilities in the wake of a loss can be overwhelming. We strive to guide our clients through probate and the estate administration process with utmost care and empathy. Individual and corporate executors rely on our guidance in all aspects of estate administration, including preparing and filing probate documents, identifying estate property, preparing estate tax returns, and managing the distribution of estate assets. Our team has strong technical capabilities in estate, income, and generation-skipping transfer tax matters as they relate to estate administration.
Trust companies, banks, and individual trustees rely on our counsel regarding their fiduciary obligations and trust administration matters, including income and transfer tax analysis of beneficiary transactions (including distributions, loans, redemptions, and entity sales), trust mergers and decanting, trustee succession plans, and the distribution of assets upon termination of trusts.
Our continuing commitment is to honor the intentions of the decedent or settlor while reducing friction among beneficiaries, thus improving the outcome for all parties.