Estate Planning and Tax Planning
We assist individuals in structuring their asset ownership to maximize the enjoyment of their wealth during lifetime, while maintaining control over their property and their person in the event of disability due to age or accident. Equally important, we help clients transition their property to a surviving spouse, family members, friends, charities, or a combination thereof, with a view towards minimization of taxes and expenses of estate administration. Education is an important element of our work, and we do our utmost in helping our clients understand each and every document they sign, be it a trust, last will and testament, durable power of attorney, or health care proxy. To assist in the education process, we provide explanations of all documents, and include charts and other tools to facilitate comprehension.

Advanced Estate Planning
Many of our clients require more than the typical documents which comprise the modern estate plan. After the basic documents are in place (trust, durable power of attorney, health care proxy with living will, HIPAA authorization and release, homestead, and last will and testament), “Phase Two” of a multifaceted estate plan must include sophisticated gift and estate tax reduction techniques, including generation skipping transfer tax (GSTT) planning, a grantor retained annuity trust (GRAT), a qualified personal residence trust (QPRT), a family limited liability company (FLLC), or a self-canceling installment note (SCIN) as well as charitable planning techniques. We also assist the multinational individual navigate the international laws of trusts and estates to ensure an integrated plan that is effective in all applicable jurisdictions.

Trust, Estate, and Probate Administration
We advise individuals, trustees and beneficiaries with lifetime trust administration, and advise individuals, trustees, beneficiaries and executors with postmortem administration of trusts and estates, including counsel regarding the procedural and substantive aspects of probating an estate, including will contests. We provide postmortem tax planning to minimize the estate tax due and reduce income taxes to estates, trusts, and beneficiaries. We also counsel trustees, executors, and other fiduciaries regarding fiduciary duties, and advise on inventory and assessment of estate assets.

Family Business and Succession Planning
We assist individuals with all aspects of family business planning, including the integration of the younger generation into the management of the company, keeping in mind a family’s usual wish to maintain equity among all family members, whether active in the business or not. Transition mechanisms may include a stock purchase agreement coupled with a private annuity, an installment sale to a grantor trust, recapitalization, and voting trusts. We work with the family’s team of advisors to minimize the impact of the estate tax on the continuation of the business by maximizing the availability of estate tax deferral techniques and, where appropriate, employing insurance products to provide liquidity or to retain key employees after the death of the founder.

Asset Protection Planning
We conduct a thorough review of a client’s existing financial and personal circumstances to assess and comment on the client’s exposure and vulnerability to potential creditors. We then develop, recommend, and implement an asset protection plan, domestic, international, or both, being careful to coordinate the same with the client’s estate plan.

Business Law
We provide clear, practical, and timely day-to-day legal advice to businesses and their owners on a wide range of operational matters and complex legal issues. These include: reviewing, drafting, and negotiating numerous types of commercial agreements; advising on employment-related issues, such as employee agreements, executive compensation arrangements, and confidentiality/nondisclosure agreements; assisting on business formation matters; and drafting and negotiating buy/sell agreements among business owners.

Trusts for the Beneficiary with Special Considerations
We advise families regarding the planning for children, other relatives, or friends with special circumstances and assist them with the implementation of a trust, or provisions within a trust, for such a beneficiary who needs assistance with financial affairs or who has personal issues that necessitate the oversight of a trustee. We have found that developing such an arrangement allows the family to include the beneficiary in their estate plan while giving them peace of mind that the inheritance is secure and the beneficiary is protected.

Special Trusts for the Disabled and for Personal Injury Settlements
Often, individuals who are disabled, or who expect to receive personal injury settlements, need to utilize a special type of trust which combines effective money management with possible eligibility for public benefits. In addition to drafting these trusts, we advise such individuals and personal injury attorneys on related tax and unique administration issues.

Planning for Non-Traditional Families
We provide estate, tax, and disposition planning for “non-traditional” families, including domestic partners and married and unmarried same-sex couples. We design plans leveraging trusts and gifting strategies for unmarried couples; prepare prenuptial, postnuptual, and cohabitation agreements; and advise on dispositions to stepchildren, extended family members, and children from previous relationships and marriages.

International Estate and Tax Planning
We counsel national and multi-national clients who have property in foreign jurisdictions, advising them of the legal and tax consequences of ownership and transfer of such property both during life and at death, from an estate planning standpoint. We also represent national and multi-national clients who have family members domiciled in different jurisdictions with respect to tax and legal aspects of their estate plans.

Charitable Giving
We counsel clients with charitable goals and assist in carrying out their charitable objectives through the use of various planning methods such as outright gifts, charitable trusts (including charitable lead trusts and charitable remainder trusts), private family foundations, donor advised funds, and gift annuities.

Gift and Estate Tax Return Preparation
We assist clients, trustees, and executors with preparation of federal and state gift and estate tax returns, including advising individuals regarding beneficial tax elections, post mortem planning techniques, IRS and state Departments of Revenue standards and procedures, and valuation of property to be included on the return.

Elder Law
Elders often have issues unique to their situation in life. We advise elders and family members on such issues and related options. We discuss and implement planning for potential long-term care needs, whether provided at home or in a facility, involving the use of trusts, life estates, gifts, long-term care insurance, reverse mortgages, and other techniques.

Guardianships
We counsel family members and other individuals on the advisability of seeking a guardianship or conservatorship. We represent guardians and conservators in the process of filing a petition for uncontested guardianships and conservatorships, and we act as consultants or expert witnesses in contested guardianships. Guardians and conservators consult us in the administration of the ward’s estate, including the filing of accountings.

Planning With Life Insurance
Life insurance protection is an important part of almost every estate plan, but we sometimes see that protection jeopardized by a bad plan or a failure to plan. In developing a client’s estate plan, we are careful to recommend ownership and beneficiary designation in a way best for the family’s protection, focusing as well on the plan that will produce the least possible tax. We also regularly assist in the evaluation and appropriateness of insurance proposals the client may receive from other sources.

Expert Witness
Members of our firm are frequently called upon by litigation attorneys to testify as expert witnesses or to evaluate the merits of a case, typically in disputes involving the law of trusts (domestic and offshore), wills and will contests, taxation, and related subjects.

Planning for Pets
Our firm has a commitment to insuring the well-being of the whole family, whatever the species! Whether it is the champion (and valuable) show-jumper, the eastern box turtle whose life span can last 100 years, or the faithful dog, we support individuals who wish to provide for their companion animals within their estate plan, often through the use of a trust.