Practice Strengths

For more than 95 years, BakerHostetler has helped high-wealth individuals and families, and the fiduciaries who manage their financial assets, maximize the efficient use of financial resources and minimize the negative impact of taxation. From the initial will and trust that our lawyers developed in 1919 for publishing magnate E.W. Scripps, we have grown to become one of the largest private wealth practices at any law firm in the United States.

If controversies arise anywhere in the private wealth management process—among beneficiaries, or between beneficiaries and fiduciaries—we use our knowledge of tax law and business practice to structure a solution that validates our clients' actions and resolves the controversy either through negotiation or effective representation in court.

Our Private Wealth Practice provides comprehensive counsel and representation in the areas of most concern to clients:

• Charitable Planning
• Private Wealth Planning
• Trust and Estate Administration

Charitable Planning

Charitable Foundations and Gifts
Charitable giving is integral to many estate plans. We know how to structure it for maximum tax advantage, while fully achieving your charitable intentions. Our lawyers can:

• Obtain and maintain the charitable status of family foundations.
• Plan and implement charitable lead trusts, including charitable lead unitrusts designed to leverage the generation-skipping tax exemption as well as more traditional charitable remainder trusts.
• Ensure compliance with state and federal regulations on foundation investments.
• Administer large estates through sophisticated split-interest charitable trusts.

Gift Planning
We establish annual gifting programs as one of the most effective ways to minimize estate taxes and protect family assets. Our lawyers emphasize aggressive planning and creative trust vehicles to leverage your gift tax exclusions and credits. We ensure full tax compliance in all our giving strategies, and we regularly secure Private Letter Rulings and other guidance from the IRS to allow effective gift and generation-skipping tax planning.

Exempt Organizations
We help tax-exempt organizations secure and maintain their charitable status, which often involves guidance on the most effective grant-making policies to establish. Our lawyers often counsel exempt organizations on their investment, reporting and tax obligations under state and federal laws, particularly those that involve ownership of for-profit subsidiaries. If IRS questions arise over tax-exempt status, we will respond to audits and inquiries and secure letters of determination.

Charitable Trusts and Foundations
Our lawyers have formed and structured charitable trusts and foundations with billions of dollars in assets. As part of our private wealth counseling, we have considerable experience in advising charitable organizations about endowment development programs, including the structuring and operation of donor-advised funds and supporting foundations.

Private Wealth Planning

Providing Sophisticated Individual Wealth Management Counsel
Our private wealth practice is focused on representing high net-worth families and their closely held businesses. This practice includes the structure and operation of family offices and private trust companies, sophisticated estate and philanthropic planning, asset protection, multigenerational education and wealth-preservation planning.

Good wealth management and estate plans help individuals and families with some of their most important concerns:

• Multigenerational transfer of wealth.
• Tax minimization strategies.
• Business continuity and succession.
• Wealth transfer and tax aspects of concentrated asset positions.
• Sophisticated charitable planning strategies.

BakerHostetler provides these services and others designed specifically to meet the needs of affluent families. Our full-service practice gives clients the ability to draw on our legal experience and an array of related services nationwide.

BakerHostetler private wealth lawyers have earned the confidence of generations of clients, meeting their needs with skill and sensitivity. We have decades of trust and estate counseling experience, and we are knowledgeable about federal and state tax laws as they relate to family businesses, charitable giving, wealth preservation and estate planning.

Personal Financial Planning
We understand that a fundamental part of wealth planning is effectively managing the challenges of your life today. We apply the latest financial and tax techniques to develop plans that help you get the most out of:

• Executive compensation and benefit programs.
• Marital agreements.
• Stock options and other equity-based compensation.

Shaping the Wealth Management Legislative Landscape
For individuals and fiduciaries alike, tax laws and their interpretation have crucial impact on wealth management planning and administration. Our private wealth lawyers not only keep abreast of all the latest changes, but we also work effectively to represent our clients' interests in legislation being considered at the federal, state and local levels.

For example, our efforts contributed to the enactment of Ohio Revised Code Section 1340.22, relating to the tax-sensitive powers of fiduciaries. Our close involvement in the regulatory process often gives us an advantage in litigating important tax cases that present novel issues of estate and gift inclusion, asset valuation and qualifications for tax deductions. When new legal developments affect the duties of fiduciary clients, we offer professional education programs customized to meet their needs.

Trust & Estate Administration

Estate Planning
When you trust us to develop an estate plan, our number-one objective is to ensure your wishes are carried out. We help you make the best planning decisions by giving you sound alternatives, showing the benefits and risks of each, explaining any potential ramifications of the course you choose and making sure our advice reflects the latest developments in federal and state tax policies. Our services include trust and estate administration, guardianships and custodial accounts. We can plan highly complex wills, trust agreements and powers of attorney for a husband and wife, as well as structuring interrelated trusts, exempt organizations and other business entities.

Trust Construction and Reformation
No matter how carefully a trust instrument is drafted, laws can change or other situations can develop that the person establishing the trust did not anticipate. When that happens, we advise fiduciaries on their best courses of action. Often, we petition the courts on the fiduciaries' behalf to interpret or reform trust instruments. We also deal with the IRS if a court ruling changes the tax ramification of a trust.

Guiding Fiduciaries in Meeting Their Responsibilities
The financial institutions and individual fiduciaries that administer trusts, estates and guardianships have tremendous responsibilities toward their clients. For more than 95 years, fiduciaries have looked to BakerHostetler for the confidential, knowledgeable help they need to:

• Carry out their duties effectively.
• Avoid claims of conflict of interest and breach of fiduciary duty.
• Defend themselves against beneficiary litigation over trust or estate administration or investment performance.

Our lawyers guide executors, administrators and guardians throughout the estate administration and settlement process, focusing on the following key areas:

Trust Administration
A trust or estate plan is effective only when it is properly administered, and fiduciaries must be acutely aware of beneficiaries' rights and expectations. Our lawyers advise fiduciaries—whether as individual executors or as full trust departments—on the most effective strategies and techniques to administer trusts, estates, guardianships and other relationships. We frequently advise on the unique income, estate, gift, generation-skipping transfer and property tax issues involved in trust administration. When disputes arise, we act as counselors to:

• Interpret trust instruments.
• Resolve questions of fiduciary duty.
• Handle conflicts between one or more beneficiaries and the fiduciary.
• Help fiduciaries deal with conflicts between two or more beneficiaries.

Litigation
Fiduciaries can be sued for their property and investment management actions in a wide range of forums. Our lawyers are skilled at fiduciary representation and defense before:

• Administrative bodies and regulatory agencies.
• State and local taxing authorities.
• Federal and state trial and appellate courts.

Wherever possible, we use our knowledge of tax law and business practice to structure a solution that validates our clients' actions and resolves the controversy short of trial. If that is not possible, we aggressively and effectively defend our clients' conduct.

Private Wealth Experience

• Obtained a change in Ohio law regarding beneficiary fiduciary powers to address a specific trust and tax situation for a client with a multimillion-dollar trust, resulting in a substantial tax exclusion from the estate.
• Created a private $1 billion-plus family trust company for the family owners of a large holding company that encompassed numerous privately owned corporations. Assets transferred to the trust are controlled by three non-family trustees, limiting tax liability of the heirs.
• Represented the majority interest owner in nearly 40 real estate partnerships that are owned in turn by a series of 250 trusts, drafting rules that enabled the family of minority owners to meet and resolve controversies without disrupting the interests of our majority owner client.
• Helped the owners of a large family business reach a global settlement in a complex estate controversy after the founder's death, involving ownership and control, a second wife, death and divorce of heirs from the original marriage and a tax controversy.
• Defended a major Ohio bank in a suit by the son of a wealthy family who wanted access to money the bank held for him in trust with his brother as trustee. We demonstrated the plaintiff's irresponsible behavior in the misuse of assets and obtained a release and legal fees for the bank.

National Practice of Leaders

With more than 20 private wealth lawyers in offices from California and Colorado to Florida, Ohio and Washington, DC, BakerHostetler represents private wealth clients throughout the country. Our true strength, however, is the unsurpassed skill of our Private Wealth team, which includes: 

• Six lawyers elected to fellowship in the prestigious American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.
• The 2003 Estate Planner of the Year as selected by the Cleveland Estate Planning Council, and the recipient of the Washington, DC Estate Planning Council's First Distinguished Service Award.
• The founder and chair of the Advanced Estate Planning Institute sponsored annually by the Georgetown University Law Center, and adjunct professors of estate planning and tax law at law schools from coast to coast.
• Leaders of professional organizations, including past chairs of The Florida Bar Tax Section, the Ohio State Bar Estates & Trusts Section, and the American Bar Association's Charitable Giving Committee.
• Certified Public Accountants licensed in a number of states.

About our Private Wealth Team

BakerHostetler's private wealth team members have the skill and discretion to handle even the most sensitive and complex matters. Our senior lawyers have decades of trust and estate counseling experience, and all team members are highly knowledgeable about federal and state tax laws as they relate to family businesses, charitable giving, wealth preservation and estate planning. A number of our team members are CPAs, another illustration of how we combine top legal, business and financial experience.