The accumulation of wealth reflects sustained effort, planning, and long-term vision. Its preservation requires deliberate structuring and ongoing collaboration with our clients and their advisory teams. We devise and implement strategies that meet our clients’ goals for their wealth today and into the future by seeking solutions that provide flexibility to address the needs of future generations. While minimizing the impact of taxes and disputes are often paramount, each must be considered against a client’s unique circumstances. Our sharp focus on both provides clients with personalized, creative solutions. We are committed to seeing plans through, and have advised generations of the same families by focusing on growing our teams to meet the needs of our evolving families, providing continuity for each generation.
In practice, our role extends beyond initial plan development. We advise on the administration and evolution of those plans over time, including coordination with beneficiaries, the next generation of business owners, family advisors, and other stakeholders to ensure continuity and address the need for change as circumstances evolve. This approach reflects the reality that effective stewardship for a family requires ongoing attention as legal frameworks, assets, and family considerations evolve.
Our clients benefit from the dedication, diversity, and depth of experience among our team. We are industry leaders and nine members of our group have been elected Fellows of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), the most distinguished professional organization in this field. Our practice is nationally ranked in Chambers USA and Best Lawyers® and our lawyers are recognized at the state and national levels.
Who Do We Help?
- Individuals and families engaged in estate, wealth transfer, and multigenerational planning
- Beneficiaries and family members involved in the administration and transition of wealth
- Business owners and family enterprises planning for succession and continuity
- Individuals who are foreign nationals or who have foreign assets, with respect to inbound and outbound planning
- Family offices managing complex, multigenerational assets, and evolving family dynamics
- Private businesses connected to family wealth structures
- Charitable organizations involved in planned giving and philanthropic structures
- Banks and trust companies serving as trustees, executors, or fiduciaries
- Global families seeking clarity and efficiency in their tax and asset transfer goals
- Private businesses, fiduciaries, and beneficiaries with respect to dispute mitigation and resolution in the context of estate and trust matters
How Can We Help?
Legal support often becomes most relevant as circumstances shift—such as when assets grow in complexity, family relationships evolve, families relocate across the globe, or existing structures no longer align with current law or objectives. In these situations, the group works with clients and their other trusted advisors to reassess planning frameworks, address fiduciary and governance responsibilities, and adapt strategies to reflect both long-term intent and present-day constraints, whether tax-driven, operational, or family-related.
- We implemented a corporate reorganization for a family business with rapidly increasing value to keep voting control out of the senior family member’s estate, preserve a preferred stock freeze, and facilitate transfers of stock to the next generation. The business will now pass out of the senior generation’s hands with minimal estate tax, and the family has been able to transfer more than 30% of the business to the grandchildren’s generation.
- We have applied for and obtained favorable private letter rulings from the Internal Revenue Service in various areas impacting wealth transfer planning for our clients.
- We recently negotiated a charitable gift involving a naming opportunity for a public venue.
- We worked with a family on the design of a business entity to receive assets on the termination of a trust worth in excess of $1.5 billion.
- We represented a family office with several billion in assets under management in navigating changes in family dynamics and potential disputes with family clients.
- We worked with UK counsel to plan the estate of a dual UK and US citizen domiciled in the US. By changing the situs of assets, the client’s exposure to total UK and US estate tax was significantly reduced.
- We have represented clients in tax audits in front of IRS and state authorities related to estate and gift tax compliance matters.
- We advised a client in the creation of multiple grantor-retained annuity trusts (GRATs) and subsequent transactions to “lock-in” the tax benefits of those trusts and continue a rolling GRAT strategy with respect to the annuity payments received by the client to maximize the tax efficiency of those trusts.
- We restructured a client’s trust and gifting plan in response to higher federal and California income taxes and California Proposition 13 property tax rules, with the goal of obtaining a higher basis for later sale and depreciation of the property, and preservation of low-assessed values for property taxes.
- We assisted a national corporate fiduciary in moving more than a dozen family trusts to Delaware and converting them to directed trusts, while navigating family dynamics and utilizing nonjudicial settlement agreements (NJSAs).
- We assisted a client who won a Nobel Prize in successful charitable planning, which was subsequently emulated by another Nobel Prize winner.
- We implemented charitable remainder trusts for family members that allowed for sales of otherwise restricted stock, the deferral of income taxes, and the creation of an annuity stream for the life of the donors; and obtained a favorable private ruling from the IRS to allow the charitable remainder trusts to invest in family mutual funds.
- We assisted in the creation of a charitable entity qualifying as a public charity, to operate farming and related activities supporting sustainable agriculture, requiring the conversion of an operating business to one organized to operate exclusively for charitable purposes, significant land transfers, and working with the donor.
- We analyzed, provided a risk assessment, and developed a plan of remediation to reduce exposure to challenges with respect to the structure of a large existing family limited partnership in response to various law changes and tax court decisions.
- We regularly provide advice on planning with Qualified Small Business Stock (“QSBS”), including the initial qualification and tracking of QSBS qualification and maintaining preferential QSBS status through estate planning structures.
- We represented a multi-generational family holding assets in an industry under heavy federal regulation and oversight, to ensure efficiency in wealth transfer and worked with regulators to obtain approvals related to restructuring to ensure continued family ownership into the next generation.
