Under the leadership of shareholder Cary Jennings, BJM provides comprehensive estate planning services to individuals and families, from simple wills and trusts to advanced tax-saving strategies. We also represent fiduciaries in settling estates and managing trusts and handle legal disputes arising from probate administration.
Basic Estate Planning. Every individual or family, regardless of net worth, should have a plan for future contingencies such as death or incapacity. In close consultation with the client, we draft the essential components of an estate plan:
- Wills and ancillary documents
- Durable powers of attorney for financial transactions
- Medical powers of attorney for healthcare decisions
- Living wills (medical directives)
- Determination of guardian for children
Intermediate Estate Planning. With increasing wealth comes an increasing need for tax planning, focusing on reducing or eliminating transfer taxes imposed upon death. Such planning may include:
- Revocable management or “living” trusts
- Marital deduction trusts
- Credit shelter trusts
- Gifts to minors
Our attorneys also assist with:
- Life insurance planning
- Education planning
- Retirement planning
- Domestic asset protection
- Prenuptial planning
Advanced Estate Planning. For high net worth individuals, prudent estate planning will allow for the leveraging of the annual gift tax exclusion, lifetime exemption and generation-skipping transfer tax exemption. Our attorneys advise on the necessity of freezing the values of property within a client’s estate by utilizing entities such as closely held businesses, partnerships and trust. We also represent estates, trusts and fiduciaries in tax audits and controversies, will contests and complex fiduciary litigation.
Planning at this level involves specific tax planning advice from our resident tax attorney and the identification of appropriate estate planning instruments to achieve client goals:
Gifting Strategies
- Annual exclusion
- Lifetime exemption
- Partition
- Gift splitting
Second-Generation Planning
- Generation-skipping transfer tax and exemption planning
- Dynasty trusts
Charitable Planning
- Charitable gifts
- Charitable remainder trusts or charitable lead trusts
- Private foundations, public foundations, and supporting organizations
Closely Held Businesses
- Succession planning
- Buy-sell agreements anticipating death, incapacity, or divorce
Estate Freezing
- Family limited partnerships
- Limited liability companies
- Grantor-retained annuity trusts
- Sales to defective trusts
- Installment sales
- Qualified personal residence trusts
Estate and Probate Administration. Broude Jennings & McGlinchey PC assists personal representatives in the efficient settling of estates and trustees in managing trusts. We help administrators, executors and trustees:
- Marshal and liquidate assets
- Pay debts
- Distribute cash and other property to heirs and trust beneficiaries
- File tax returns for the estate
- Manage trust assets
- Comply with reporting and auditing obligations
Probate Litigation. We represent heirs, excluded heirs and estates in will contests and estates and executors in suits alleging breaches of fiduciary duty.
