Trusts & Estates

Building a solid financial foundation and an enduring family legacy is a rewarding, lifelong process. Effective estate planning is an essential, ongoing process that addresses changes in your family, your business, financial circumstances, the tax code, and other laws, while accomplishing your goals—both during and after your lifetime.

HOW WE HELP

Seyfarth’s Trusts & Estates team understands that each client is unique. Our results-oriented attorneys work with clients to understand their values and objectives, and then create an effective, individualized approach that fully addresses the complex interplay of family dynamics, personal finances, and business decisions.

Our team counsels individuals and families at all levels of wealth and at every phase of life. Our attorneys have broad experience advising clients at all stages of business and professional development, including entrepreneurs and executives, along with private foundations, public charities, and other tax-exempt entities. Our team collaborates closely with clients’ accountants and other advisors and, as needed, can recommend professionals from our extensive network of contacts to ensure estate planning issues are addressed from every perspective.

OUR SERVICES

Estate Planning. Our attorneys prepare wills and trusts that achieve clients’ objectives in a tax-efficient manner and provide sophisticated counsel on issues such as avoiding probate, protecting assets from creditors, and minimizing the tax ramifications when transferring wealth to future generations. Our Trusts & Estates team carefully monitors evolving tax laws and economic conditions and works with clients to develop planning strategies that take full advantage of those changes.

Estate and Trust Administration. Our attorneys represent individual and corporate executors and trustees on all aspects of the administration of estates and trusts, including probate, valuing assets, accounting and construction proceedings, trust terminations, “decanting” of trusts and jurisdiction changes, and preparation of estate, gift, generation-skipping, and fiduciary income tax returns and related tax planning. When necessary, our attorneys also represent clients in audits by tax authorities and in tax dispute litigation.

Non-Profits and Charitable Giving. Our attorneys help clients make positive change in the world by creating public charities, private foundations, and operating foundations, and we work in tandem with the IRS and state agencies to obtain and retain tax exemption for these entities. Our team represents non-profit organizations in connection with various administrative issues, as well as fundraising activities, grant agreements, and gifts and bequests received from individuals, estates, trusts, and other grant-making organizations. Our attorneys also counsel individual clients on tax-effective methods of charitable giving, including gifts of artwork and other unique assets, and draft charitable remainder and charitable lead trusts, as well as agreements with respect to building grants, scholarships, endowed chairs, and other types of major gifts.

Additionally, our Trusts & Estates attorneys develop and implement premarital, postmarital, and domestic partnership agreements that help clients preserve and protect family assets in every stage of their relationship and ensure their wishes are carried out in the event of separation, divorce, death, or incapacity. Our team represents clients in business preservation and succession issues and regularly assists in the formation and maintenance of family limited partnerships and limited liability companies—all with the goal of assuring the viability and value of their business interests, both during and after their lifetimes.

When conflicts arise, our Trusts & Estates attorneys work hard to resolve disputes through negotiation but are also prepared to partner with members of Seyfarth’s litigation group to vigorously represent clients’ interests in court.

THE SEYFARTH EXPERIENCE

Our Trusts & Estates attorneys marshal the resources of Seyfarth’s full-service platform—including our tax, real estate, corporate and securities, and insurance groups—while providing the personal attention that is more typical of an estate-planning boutique.

Beyond a thorough knowledge of tax and family law, our team is adept at navigating complex, sensitive family dynamics, as well as the conflicts and emotions that often accompany them. In fact, our Trusts & Estates attorneys often represent several generations within the same family—a testament to the effectiveness of our counsel, our long-term commitment to clients, and the loyalty these deep relationships engender.