Estate Planning and Private Wealth

Simmons Perrine PLC provides legal services to develop wealth transfer plans that reflect our clients’ needs, goals, and desires and protect the personal and business assets of our clients.

At Simmons Perrine PLC our estate planning lawyers are involved the preparation of even the most complex wills and trusts, charitable giving, business succession planning, and sophisticated tax planning. Our lawyers are involved in the probate of estates, defending clients in IRS audits and both the prosecution and defense of will contests.

Our Estate Planning and Private Wealth Law Services

Wealth Transfer

Wills
Revocable and irrevocable trusts
Lifetime and testamentary gifting plans
Charitable giving plans
Optimizing ownership structure
Private split dollar arrangements and other advanced funding mechanisms
Life insurance planning, including irrevocable life insurance trusts
Planning for qualified retirement plans
Grantor retained annuity trusts
Generation-skipping transfers
Qualified personal residence trusts
Strategies involving “intentionally defective” grantor trusts
Dynasty trusts
Asset-protection trusts
Family limited partnerships and limited liability companies
Optimizing and leveraging annual exclusion gifts
2503(c) trusts
Lifetime and testamentary QTIP trusts
Disclaimer planning
Incentive trusts and other strategies to prevent wealth dependency
Trusts for children and disabled adults
Valuation planning

Trusts, Estates and Personal Relationships

Trusts and estates administration
Probate of estates
Administration of trusts
Fiduciary duties
Family settlement agreements and judicial settlements
Modification and termination of trusts
Trustee succession issues
Personal relationships
Durable powers of attorney
Healthcare powers of attorney
Living wills
Premarital agreements
Cohabitation agreements for unmarried partners
Adoptions

Family Business Planning and Asset Management

Succession planning for closely-held business interests
Management and preservation of assets
Fiduciary duties
Shareholder agreements and buy-sell covenants
Structuring redemption agreements, option contracts, shareholder agreements, buy-sell covenants and rights of refusal
Separating ownership and control
Entity status, subchapter S elections and real estate LLCs
Board structure and governance issues before, during and after intergenerational transfers
When and how to sell your business
ESOPs and other forms of employee ownership
Phantom stock plans, deferred compensation and golden parachute plans
How to achieve equality between children involved in the business and children not involved in the business