| Wealth and Estate Planning |
General Family Counsel: We work with many clients as general counsel of their affairs, providing services that range from assistance with the selection of investment managers to legal advice regarding the purchase and sale of investment properties and private planes. Our services also include regular meetings with clients and their other advisors, and the coordination of multidisciplinary planning such as financial and tax planning, wealth transfer planning, family foundation management and client education. Taking a broad and comprehensive view of a client's affairs, we can provide continuity from generation to generation.
(See also: Aviation Department – aircraft acquisition and financing area and Real Estate Department – capital management area.)
Estate Planning: Careful estate planning means not merely creating a will, but also designing a comprehensive and flexible plan to protect future generations from the significant gift and estate taxes that often accompany the transfer of wealth. Depending upon your specific needs, this plan may involve the organization of assets and their form of ownership, the involvement of appropriate fiduciaries, or the development of broad-ranging strategies intended to minimize taxes and maximize benefits for family members.
Our lawyers will work with you to craft a customized estate plan that will help you achieve your goals, and will manage the ongoing implementation of the plan to ensure that it continues to support your needs and objectives.
International Planning: Because legal and tax issues vary dramatically by country, the complexity of wealth management increases considerably when clients’ interests extend across national borders. Without adequate planning, individuals may unwittingly subject their assets to unnecessary taxation in multiple jurisdictions.
We advise our non-US clients on legal and tax matters requiring US legal advice, and counsel our US clients on planning matters that have an international dimension. Drawing on our relationships with lawyers around the globe, we help US citizens, residents and foreign nationals navigate a range of cross-border issues. For clients whose family members live in different countries, we incorporate multinational considerations into estate planning.
Our team regularly counsels US citizens living abroad, in countries such as the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Israel and Taiwan. Since many of these clients have spouses who are non-US citizens, estate planning for these couples often requires coordination between the laws of both countries, as well as the consideration of tax treaties.
We also have substantial experience restructuring foreign trusts—including trust governed under the laws of the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Canada, Bermuda, the island of Jersey and the Cayman Islands—to better conform to changing tax laws and respond to planning contingencies.
(See also: Tax Department – International Planning.)
Lifetime Planning: Making lifetime gifts is often the best technique to transfer wealth at minimal tax cost. As your advisor, we help you identify lifetime gifting opportunities and help you create personally tailored gifting instruments that reflect your goals including, when possible, instruments that are flexible enough for you to use for future gifting opportunities. We use structures ranging from outright gifts and irrevocable trusts to family limited partnerships, limited liability companies, qualified annuity trusts and split-interest trusts.
Pre-IPO and Pre-Acquisition Planning: An initial public offering or other major business transaction may be the most important financial event of your life. Carefully considered moves in advance of the transaction can yield increased financial benefits for you and your family. Our seasoned attorneys have counseled many company founders, venture capitalists and executives at this highly critical intersection of wealth, business and personal tax planning.
Public company clients benefit from the advice of our renowned corporate, securities and tax lawyers on the compliance aspects of charitable lead and remainder trust, qualified annuity trust, securities transactions in trusts and irrevocable trusts for the benefit of children.
(See also: Corporate Department - Public Offerings and Mergers and Acquisitions.)