Trust, Probate, and Estate Planning

Porter Hedges helps business owners and partners, entrepreneurs, executives, professionals, and their families prepare for retirement and a host of other scenarios requiring careful planning for wealth preservation, business succession, and tax minimization. We respect the unique concerns and wishes of each client, ensuring that they are met within the context of the legal requirements for executors, trustees, guardians, heirs, and beneficiaries.

Our attorneys are adept and highly experienced at handling even the most complex trust and estate planning needs, providing the full range of services related to estate and business planning, wealth protection, and trust administration. We customize wills, trust agreements, and business entity structures to maximize asset protection, minimize taxes, and provide confidence that our clients’ wishes will be carried out. Our attorneys carefully prepare every type of estate or trust documentation related to wills, charitable and family trusts, family partnership structures, marital property agreements, and business succession agreements.

Working with high net worth individuals and business owners/executives who often have complex circumstances related to their retirement or their death, our attorneys are highly experienced at:

Protecting estates using various asset protection techniques to achieve estate tax savings
Providing for family members with special needs
Establishing the division of assets among children and spouses in blended families
Drafting shareholder agreements for business owners who are concerned about ongoing company management and transition of ownership if one of the partners dies or chooses to leave the business
Obtaining estate tax valuation discounts on complex financial assets
Planning for incapacity or other special health situations
Managing the financial affairs of individuals and couples with no close family who are no longer able to effectively do so themselves

Tax Management

Effective tax management is essential to successful estate planning. We work skillfully with clients to handle:

Federal estate and gift tax filings
Federal generation-skipping transfer taxes
Estate tax examinations before the Internal Revenue Service
Disputes before the IRS Appellate Division and U.S. Tax Court

Dispute Resolution

Disputes regarding wills and estates are common, and Porter Hedges attorneys know how to get them resolved quickly and efficiently, with as little family, business, and financial disruption as possible. We often handle disputes involving such issues as: