Estates & Trusts

We have extensive experience developing sophisticated estate plans for wealthy individuals and families. These plans are designed to reduce potential tax burdens within the context of your overall estate-planning objectives. We use sophisticated planning vehicles — including specialized trusts, family-limited partnerships, limited liability companies, and private charitable foundations — and tailor them to meet your specific needs.

Because employee benefits often are at the core of a public company executive’s wealth, we offer Executive Estate Planning services to our corporate clients, working with CEOs and CFOs to provide their top executives with thorough estate planning that adapts to constantly changing tax laws. We collaborate with our colleagues in the Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Practice to assist executives with estate planning for stock option plans, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), retirement benefits, compensation plans, restricted stock and fringe benefits, and compliance with relevant securities laws. Our Executive Estate Planning program is designed to minimize the cost per executive for comprehensive estate planning services.

When it comes to private and closely held businesses, comprehensive estate and succession planning is critical to achieving your personal and business goals. We provide counsel on alternatives for transferring ownership and control to the next generation, and in solving liquidity concerns associated with estate taxes. We work closely with members of our Transactional & Securities, Real Estate, and Taxation Practices to provide a coordinated approach to a wide range of matters, including business operations, income tax planning, estate tax planning, management succession planning, and ownership succession planning.

We represent numerous multimillion-dollar estates and trusts, many of which involve portfolios with such diverse and complex assets as art collections, closely held business interests, real estate held for development, mineral interests, patents, and copyrights. We assist in the administration and management of these estates and trusts, and counsel the fiduciaries and beneficiaries regarding a wide range of administration, investment, and tax planning matters. We also serve as executors or trustees for clients when appropriate. Our services additionally include preparing estate and fiduciary income tax returns, providing comprehensive trust accounting services, and representing fiduciaries before the IRS.

In addition, clients who rely on us to serve as trustees or successor trustees have access to FOLEY PrivateOffice^®, the firm’s exclusive trust administration services. Through FOLEY PrivateOffice, our attorneys and staff administer several billion dollars in client assets and cater to the needs of approximately 1,000 family members.

In addition to serving as general counsel to executors, trustees, and guardians, we frequently serve as special counsel to individual and corporate fiduciaries, providing advice about the construction of wills and trusts, complex issues of fiduciary law, and fiduciary tax issues.

We offer the combined strength of experienced estates and trusts attorneys and talented litigators to provide comprehensive risk management and dispute resolution services. We provide the complete range of services to individuals, institutional trustees, and professional fiduciaries, tailoring our risk management or litigation strategies to avoid disputes or resolve them favorably and expeditiously. We offer clients extensive experience in trust construction, enforcement and modification suits, will and trust contests, suits to surcharge or remove fiduciaries, and negotiation of private settlement agreements to resolve such litigation out of court. In addition, we frequently represent estates in complex estate and gift tax audits and litigation.