The firm’s trust and estate attorneys provide a full range of estate planning and administration services to individuals. We counsel our clients on developing, implementing, and administering comprehensive lifetime and testamentary estate and tax planning strategies to meet their personal wealth accumulation and disposition objectives. Our attorneys strive to preserve current income and assets, minimize transfer tax consequences and optimize the financial benefits to present and future generations.
The firm’s estate planning practice includes experience in the following:
- Analysis of estate and tax objectives and identification of possible implementation strategies
- Drafting of wills, trusts and ancillary documents
- Planning for lifetime and leveraged gifts through use of grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs), qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTs) and installment sales to “defective” grantor trusts
- Asset value discounting techniques such as fractional interest discounts and discounts generated through use of limited liability companies (LLCs) and family limited partnerships (FLPs)
- Options for protecting the elderly and disabled, including special needs trusts, durable powers of attorney, health care proxies, living wills, and guardianships and conservatorships
- Estate, inheritance and income tax planning
- Preparing federal estate and state inheritance tax returns
- Planning for distributions of retirement benefits
- Prenuptial agreements
- Charitable giving and private foundations
- Probating of estates and preparation of state and federal tax returns
- Estate settlements and will contests
- Asset protection planning through use of domestic and offshore vehicles
- Liquidity and insurance planning