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Practice

Trusts and Estates

The services of our Trusts and Estates Practice Group include:
• estate planning
• tax planning
• business succession planning
• financial and retirement planning
• estate and trust administration
• estate planning for families with special needs
• elder law
• Medicaid planning
• estate and trust litigation
• charitable gift planning, and
• representation of tax-exempt and charitable organizations.

Our Trusts and Estates attorneys and paralegals possess diverse talents and interdisciplinary skills. Areas of concentration include tax, employee benefits, will and trust preparation and administration, tax return preparation, business organizations, and elder law.

Members of our Practice Group include attorneys who are admitted to practice in New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Florida, allowing us to assist in estate, tax, financial and retirement planning, and in the administration of estates and trusts, for residents of each of these states.

Estate Planning
Our estate planning services include the preparation of wills, health care proxies, living wills, durable powers of attorney and living revocable and irrevocable trusts, including Medicaid trusts, life insurance trusts, generation-skipping trusts, business trusts, asset protection trusts, charitable trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts and qualified personal residence trusts. Our tax planning services include the use of these planning devices to assist our clients in reducing the tax burdens on their estates.

Business Succession Planning
The depth of our experience in representing business clients in all aspects of commercial dealings makes us especially qualified to assist in planning for business succession. By using the aforementioned estate and tax planning devices, and by implementing business recapitalizations, business reorganizations, new entity formation and ownership transfers where appropriate, our Practice Group is able to formulate a gifting, inheritance and succession program that meets the unique needs of the family business owner. We also provide counsel regarding asset protection, including the use of asset protection trusts.

Elder Law
Our attorneys frequently represent families with elderly or terminally ill members. We advise these families on:
• asset protection
• Medicaid qualification
• Social Security
• Medicare
• hospital discharge planning
• nursing home and home care planning
• estate and tax planning
• designation of agents under health care proxies and durable powers of attorney, and,
• complex guardianship proceedings for incapacitated persons and their families.

Special Needs Planning
Families with members who have special needs present a wide array of planning issues. Our attorneys regularly counsel such families on the establishment of special needs trusts, guardianships and the use of other planning devices to protect governmental benefits and to provide a comfortable life for the special needs client. Frequently this counsel involves representation in state court proceedings and other appropriate forums.

Retirement and Financial Planning
Our retirement and financial planning services include
• review, analysis and implementation of retirement strategies using qualified and non-qualified retirement plans, deferred compensation
• plans and phantom ownership plans
• determination of the appropriate beneficiaries for these plans
• analysis of and use of insurance in the retirement and estate plan
• determination of appropriate minimum distribution elections from qualified plans
• analysis of asset ownership between spouses and among family members, and
• implementation of ownership changes and asset allocation strategies that improve a client’s overall investment and tax picture.

Charitable Gift Planning
Our services to clients with charitable intentions include providing counsel on the appropriate form of charitable gift and the selection of the most tax-effective assets to bequeath or donate; assisting in the establishment of charitable remainder trusts, charitable lead trusts, private foundations, supporting organizations and charitable operating organizations; and representation of such tax-exempt organizations in all aspects of their operations.

Trust and Estate Administration
Our attorneys and paralegals handle all aspects of administering wills and trusts, including the probate of wills, the marshaling and inventory of assets, the preparation and filing of estate tax returns and fiduciary income tax returns, the administration of living and testamentary trusts, and the establishment and implementation of investment and distribution policies for trusts and estates. We represent beneficiaries and fiduciaries in contested trust and estate matters in all appropriate forums including state and federal courts.  We also provide trust management services to individual trustees, including attorneys of the firm who are acting as trustees.



Attorneys

Laurence G. Bousquet
Christine Woodcock Dettor
Edward S. Green
Kim V. Heyman
David A. Holstein
Virginia A. Hoveman
Emilee K. Lawson Hatch
Sharon A. McAuliffe
Harrison V. Williams, Jr.