Estate Planning and Probate

• Estate and succession planning
• Trust and estate administration
• Tax planning and preparation
• Charitable planning
• Foundation management and regulatory compliance
• Business succession planning
• Marital agreements planning.

Questionnaire

Our Clients

• Our clients include individuals and families, professional athletes, doctors, real estate developers, privately owned companies, foundations, and fiduciaries.
• We help clients who have large, complex estates with cutting-edge tax planning and asset management.
• For people with more standard needs, we have constructed efficient, cost-effective models to minimize administrative hassles and provide security and certainty to loved ones.
• We help business owners plan for an orderly succession and maximize the after tax proceeds of liquidity events.
• We assist trustees with tax and legal matters that arise from their fiduciary duties.
• We represent both fiduciaries and beneficiaries in estate disputes.

Areas of Focus 

• Estate and Succession Planning
• Trust and Estate Administration
• Charitable Planning and Tax Exempt Organizations
• Business Succession Planning
• Marital/Prenuptial Agreements
• Income Tax Planning

Estate and Succession Planning

• Develop plans to minimize the cost and burden associated with the transferring of assets at death through trusts and other arrangements;
• Preparation of traditional estate planning documents (wills, revocable trust agreements, powers of attorney, and living wills);
• Gift, estate, and generation-skipping transfer tax planning;
• Asset titling and customized beneficiary designations;
• Full integration of wealth transfer plans in a team approach with other advisors;
• Trusts for education of children and grandchildren;
• Irrevocable trusts, including intentionally defective irrevocable trusts (IDITs), grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs), qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTs) and irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs);
• Dynasty trusts.

Trust and Estate Administration

• Advise executors, trustees and beneficiaries on all aspects of the estates and trusts administration to make sure the intentions of the individual that established the estate plan are carried out;
• Family dispute resolution;
• Fiduciary duty issues and avoidance of conflicts of interest;
• Trust construction and reformation;
• Post-mortem tax planning strategies;
• Preparation of accounting and required court filings;
• Fiduciary income tax preparation;
• Estate, gift, and generation skipping tax preparation.

Charitable Planning and Tax Exempt Organizations

• Charitable gifting strategies;
• Charitable trusts, including charitable lead annuity and unitrusts (CLATs and CLUTs) and charitable remainder annuity and unitrusts (CRATs and CRUTs);
• Family foundations and other tax exempt organizations;
• Tax compliance, governance and regulatory issues, risk management and other legal issues.

Business Succession Planning

• Pre-sale tax planning, communication and governance;
• Select the most beneficial legal entity to hold, manage and transfer the family business;
• Assist the owner in balancing the diverse needs of family members to minimize family conflict;
• Analyze liquidity needs to fund buyouts upon retirement, death or disability;
• Use of life insurance and other assets to equalize inheritance to children that will not receive a significant ownership in the business;
• Buy-Sell Agreements;
• Key employee ownership and incentive compensation planning for the retention of key employees.
  

Marital/Prenuptial Agreements

• Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements and planning;
• Cohabitation agreements and planning.

Income Tax

• Choice of entity/pass-through taxation;
• State income tax situs and minimization issues;
• Individual and Fiduciary income tax preparation;
• Estate, gift, and generation skipping tax preparation.