Private Wealth & Estates

Through one-on-one discussions and working relationships with their advisors, we help clients clarify their goals and smooth over potential pain points through various planning strategies, counseling clients on the steps necessary to achieve those goals.

We also advise our clients who own businesses with respect to legal solutions designed to help manage the impact of the business’ performance on client’s long-term private wealth planning goals. Our attorneys leverage legal developments and a full menu of time-honored and emerging strategies to clients. Whether you are looking for comprehensive or a-la-carte solutions, the practical and legal advice you’ll receive when working with our attorneys will help you put in place an appropriate structure to protect your assets and minimize the risk of conflict in the future.

In working with us, clients gain access to the full complement of attorneys at Jones & Keller in corporate, securities, labor and employment, tax, and other legal and business disciplines, who are available to lend collaborative insights to solving complex private wealth matters.

Everyone needs a core plan. Why? State statutes govern who manages a person’s finances and care during incapacity and who receives a decedent’s property. At its simplest, a core estate plan puts these decisions back in the hands of the you, our client.

A solid core estate plan reduces the risk of legal controversy. A core plan may include the following.

• Last will and testament
• Financial durable power of attorney
• Advanced medical directives (i.e. medical durable power of attorney, HIPAA authorization, and living will)
• Revocable trust

Typically beginning with a core estate plan, private wealth strategies are built from the ground up with you, your family and your business goals in mind to set the foundation for a comprehensive structure that truly create peace of mind.

For those clients with more complexities, we tailor estate plans to address these complexities with personalized tools and strategies, which may include:

• For individuals interested in asset protection planning, we create trust structures designed to keep assets protected against a beneficiaries’ creditors as well as domestic asset protection trusts (DAPTs) designed to protect assets from our client’s potential future creditors
• For blended families, structure trusts designed to ensure surviving spouse has access to funds for the remainder of his or her life, and after the death of the surviving spouse, any remaining funds are distributed as couple originally intended
• For business owners, we can help transition the business to family members or, leveraging our corporate, M&A, and securities team, assist in the transferring the business to key employees or a third party
• For high-net-worth individuals, we engage in sophisticated tax planning with tax-advantaged entities including family limited partnerships and limited liability companies, dynasty trusts, trusts structured to hold inherited qualified plans such as IRAs and 401(k), split interest trusts, grantor trusts, irrevocable non-grantor trust (ING), irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT), charitable remainder trust (CRT), charitable lead trust (CLT), spousal lifetime access trust (SLAT), qualified personal residence trust (QPRT), life insurance trusts (ILIT) and more
• For individuals with non-traditional assets, mineral interests, stock options, retirement accounts, time shares, we design advanced planning strategies to transfer those assets efficiently

While our corporate lawyers focus on growing and improving your business, we focus on how the business’ success affects your future financial position and family. This may include:

• Structuring entities and planning for business succession
• Using buy-sell agreements, trusts, limited liability companies, employment agreements, and other strategies in designing a comprehensive and flexible plan
• Naming successor(s) to run the business and other key players as well as factoring their skills, role, and compensation into a succession plan
• Determining a methodology, structure, and contractual provisions for a smooth and controlled transfer of control
• Unlocking retirement income for business owners
• Counseling through family dynamics, business priorities, and emerging realities
• Contingency and revision planning to minimize liquidity demands and effect leadership/ownership changes at retirement or death of a principal shareholder

Tax savings and a smooth, well-thought out wealth transfer are cornerstones of the private wealth practice at Jones & Keller. Familial, business, and charitable giving goals are factored into applicable tax planning, which may include:

• Tax-smart minimization strategies
• Designing and implementing charitable contribution vehicles such as family foundations, charitable trusts, donor advised funds and direct gifts
• Preparing federal estate tax and gift tax returns
• Implementing gift and tax reduction strategies for multigenerational transfers of wealth
• Analyzing the impact of charitable deductions and other tax reduction measures

Drawing on extensive experience in industry and emerging issues, our tax controversy attorneys counsel clients in anticipating and planning for future controversies, under audit, settlement efforts—individual and coordinated IRS and Treasury, and IRS appeals controversies, including.

• Representing clients in audit controversy proceedings, including obtaining private letter rulings, pre-filing agreements, technical advice memoranda, Fast Track Appeals resolution, and Early Referrals at the IRS and state audit level through tax litigation
• Resolving challenging tax problems and IRS summonses, enforcement proceedings and joint defense agreements at the earliest possible moment, reducing the risk of prolonged audits and administrative appeals, achieving settlements, or effectively positioning to litigation

Probate is one part of administration. It’s the legal process of transferring title of assets from a decedent to his or her beneficiaries. Even if all property is held in a trust, that trust still needs to go through an administration process. Finally, when a person lacks capacity, the legal system creates a process for administering guardianship, conservatorship, or power of attorney directives for an incapacitated person’s estate.

We help clients navigate these legal processes, making them as smooth as possible for our clients. Big or small, active or passive, we help clients with whatever is needed to administer–open, manage, and close–an estate or trust. In doing so, we advise fiduciaries (i.e. trustees, personal representatives, agents) with respect to their responsibilities and duties in their fiduciary role.

When questions or problems arise under IRS or state audits or during the process of estate/trust administration, formal challenges may arise. We combine trial-tested litigation skills with experience to advocate effectively for our clients throughout the IRS administrative process and in the courts. We engage experts to prepare and defend positions, achieving levels of success. Examples of litigation we have handled in the past include:

• Representing estate beneficiaries to protect their inheritance
• Representing corporate fiduciaries against breach of fiduciary actions
• Representing family members, fiduciaries, and beneficiaries in pre-controversy planning
• Representing individuals, family members, and fiduciaries in contested guardianships and conservatorships
• Representing trustees from collateral attacks on trust property, including divorce actions, bankruptcy, and equivalent judgements