Ranked nationwide in Private Wealth Law by Chambers and Partners High Net Worth, Lathrop GPM’s Private Client Services group helps high-net-worth individuals, multigenerational families, family offices and nonprofit foundations plan, transfer and protect significant wealth. We handle the full arc of private wealth work, from comprehensive estate plans and advanced transfer tax strategies to the administration of trusts and estates and, when disputes arise, litigation. We also advise the closely held businesses and family enterprises that often anchor a family’s wealth, alongside the accountants, advisors and fiduciaries who work with them.

Wealth that spans operating businesses, real estate, investment portfolios, private equity and several generations rarely transfers cleanly. Tax exposure, family dynamics, business succession and fiduciary duties pull stakeholders in different directions, and the federal transfer tax rules that govern them keep moving. We get ahead of that by structuring ownership and trusts to reduce transfer tax exposure, coordinating the plan with the family’s businesses and advisors, leaving a framework that holds up when administered or challenged.

We serve clients coast to coast with more than 40 attorneys, one of the largest private client practices across the Central and Upper Midwest, Mountain West and Northern California, including Silicon Valley. That scale lets us take on the most complex wealth transfer and succession matters while keeping the practical approach clients expect from a Midwestern-rooted firm.

Why Lathrop GPM

Nationally Ranked

Lathrop GPM sits among the country’s top-ranked private client practices. Chambers and Partners High Net Worth ranks the group nationwide in Private Wealth Law and ranks 19 of our attorneys individually. U.S. News Best Lawyers names the firm a nationwide Tier 1 Best Law Firm for Trusts and Estates. Twelve of our attorneys are Fellows of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, the peer-elected standard-bearer for the field, and our attorneys present regularly at ACTEC meetings, the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, the Jerry A. Kasner Estate Planning Symposium and state bar conferences.

Coordinated Across the Firm

Significant wealth usually has complexities, and the estate plan to protect it has to consider all related issues.  Because private wealth issues often intersect with closely held businesses, commercial real estate, executive compensation arrangements and trust disputes, we work seamlessly with colleagues across corporate, tax, real estate, employment and litigation. For many families, we also advise the operating business itself and support the trustees and family offices connected to it.

Depth in Advanced Planning

Much of our work involves large, structurally complex estates that require very technical planning. We regularly move business interests and liquidity-event proceeds ranging from tens of millions into the billions out of taxable estates and to the next generation, using installment sales, grantor retained annuity trusts and charitable lead trusts, often funding multigenerational dynasty trusts that then provide financial stability for families. This work sits squarely within Section 2701 and valuation-discount rules, where the technical rules carry real consequences and the margin for error is small.

Planning Through Administration and Disputes

We stay with a plan across its full life. We design and implement it, administer estates and trusts when the time comes, and step in for fiduciaries and beneficiaries if it is later contested. Our dedicated trust and estate litigation team handles disputes at trial and through appeal. Moving from planning to administration, or from administration to a dispute, never means starting over at a different law firm.

Substantive Areas

Transfer Tax Advanced Planning

We design and implement lifetime gifting and wealth transfer strategies that move assets to the next generation at reduced transfer tax cost. The toolkit runs from grantor retained annuity trusts and installment sales to intentionally defective grantor trusts, to family limited partnerships and holding companies structured to support valuation discounts, to qualified personal residence trusts for primary and vacation homes. We also prepare and review the gift and estate tax returns that report these transfers.

Basic Estate Planning

Every plan starts with the core documents, and we build them to work together rather than sit in a binder. That means revocable living trusts, including joint trusts for spouses, durable powers of attorney for financial and health care decisions, HIPAA authorizations and wills that address guardianship of minor children. We also handle trust funding, the step that plans most often leave unfinished.

Irrevocable Trust Planning

Irrevocable trusts, including life insurance trusts, are central to transfer tax planning, and they only deliver if they are administered correctly. We form and fund them, evaluate premium funding options such as premium finance and split-dollar arrangements, advise trustees on distribution standards and duties, and prepare the accountings, Crummey notices and statements of trustee action that keep them defensible. When a trust no longer fits, we handle judicial and non-judicial modification or termination.

Charitable and Nonprofit Planning

We help families and their foundations build charitable giving that carries out a philanthropic legacy while managing tax exposure. The work spans private foundations, donor-advised funds, supporting organizations and public charities, along with charitable remainder and lead trusts, gift annuities, conservation easements and the Forms 1023 and 990 filings that keep these entities compliant.

Closely Held Business and Succession Planning

For families whose wealth is tied up in an operating business, the estate plan and the business plan are the same plan. We structure ownership and transitions using buy-sell agreements, voting trusts, stockholder agreements and staged transfers; coordinate the tax and financial pieces; and address the control and equalization questions that decide whether a succession holds together. We also handle the entity work behind it, from organization and capital formation to recapitalizations and joint ventures.

Family Offices and Private Trust Companies

Families managing wealth at scale often centralize it in a family office or private trust company, and the structure has to satisfy both the family and the regulators. We help families evaluate which jurisdiction best fits their goals, whether Delaware, Nevada, South Dakota, Wyoming or their home state, then handle formation, ownership and organizational design along with the ongoing compliance that keeps these entities running.

Post-Mortem Planning and Administration

When a client dies, the plan moves from paper to execution, and the tax elections made in the first months shape the outcome. We guide executors and trustees through probate and estate administration, prepare estate and income tax returns, and advise on disclaimers and elections such as QTIP and portability that can materially change the tax result.

Trust and Estate Litigation

We have a dedicated trust and estate litigation team that represents trustees, executors and beneficiaries in will contests, breach of fiduciary duty claims, guardianship proceedings and trust disputes at trial and on appeal. We have a long track record defending fiduciaries against aggressive beneficiaries and other claimants, and we handle appeals in this space, work that few trusts and estates groups take on. We also help trustees and other fiduciaries with litigation avoidance strategies and proactively use court processes to obtain approval of actions and discharge liability. When a dispute cannot be avoided, we negotiate family settlement agreements that can resolve it before it hardens into prolonged litigation where possible.

Additional Areas of Focus

Income Tax Planning

We handle basis step-up planning, trust modifications for income tax savings and charitable deduction planning, coordinating with clients’ accountants and tax advisors.

Asset Protection Planning

We structure asset titling, limited liability entities and self-settled and third-party spendthrift trusts to protect wealth from future claims.

Retirement Asset Planning

We plan for income tax deferral on retirement assets through custom beneficiary designations, see-through trusts and charitable bequest funding.

Carried Interest Planning

We help fund principals transfer carried interest to irrevocable trusts early in a fund’s life to leverage gift and estate tax exemption, using vertical slice and derivative structures built around the Section 2701 valuation rules.

Real Estate

We advise on the real estate that sits inside many estate plans, from acquisitions and leases to development and tax matters.

Experience

  • Transferring business interests to Multi-Generational Trusts for multiple clients using various estate planning strategies such as Installment Sales, Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts, and Zeroed Out Charitable Lead Annuity Trusts. These Multi-Generational Trusts hold business interests and the proceeds from liquidity events valued at $50 million to $2 billion. These Trusts also serve as “Family Banks” to invest in private equity, real estate, hedge funds, and alternative assets.
  • Reorganizing companies for Real Estate Developers and generating substantial income tax and estate tax savings.

  • Pre-Sale planning for the sale of closely held businesses, including income tax and transfer tax planning. Charitable planning involves the creation of private foundations and supporting organizations to implement charitable legacies.
  • Structured trusts and entities to transfer interests in professional sports teams to descendants, minimizing estate and income taxes.
  • Structured business succession plan, utilizing trusts, LLCs and other vehicles for transition of ownership, while minimizing estate and income taxes.
  • Handled estate, charitable, and income tax planning for business owner, including estate and income tax planning and the creation of a charitable foundation. Structured entities and trusts, including a private foundation, to minimize estate and income tax consequences upon the sale of a business.
  • Counseled an individual regarding the succession of his business. Our client wished to transfer, by way of gift, all of the stock in his multimillion-dollar manufacturing company to his six children, taking a deferred compensation package. With a strong succession plan in place, including specific management objectives, the children grew their father’s gift into a $40 million business. When our client passed away in 2007, his children owed no inheritance tax and were able to continue his thriving business.
  • Assisted client with the formation of a family limited partnership worth $200 million after father’s death, saving the family $30 million in estate taxes.
  • Handled the complex transitioning of ownership of operating business and associated real estate for three generations of family members, including division of the business into separate entities to segregate business types and liabilities; Subchapter S elections to minimize long-term income tax liabilities; trust creation; and estate and income tax planning.
  • Structured transaction to minimize income tax concerns for a corporation owned by four separate families, including real estate issues, a buy-sell agreement, voting trusts and related documents to reduce conflict, limit control and minimize income and estate taxes.
  • Structured the business succession plan for transition of business to one member of second generation, including tax planning, buy-sell agreements and estate planning for two owners of the business to address equalization with other family members and control issues.
  • Prepare estate tax returns and gift tax returns to report complex transfer tax transactions and resolve IRS audits.
Meet the Team

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