Practice Areas

FAMILY WEALTH PLANNING

Estate Planning. We counsel clients ranging from those who are just beginning their financial and family wealth planning, to those who are contemplating retirement or the disposition of their business interests.  We tailor estate plans for our clients based on their unique goals and appropriate tax strategies.  In this context, we prepare sophisticated wills and trusts that address our clients' personal goals. In addition, we advise our clients on how to best minimize gift and estate taxes. This often encompasses the creation of various types of trusts, including bypass trusts, insurance trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, and intentionally defective trusts.  We also develop and implement many types of sophisticated planning techniques that help our clients achieve their personal, business, and tax‑related goals

We have special expertise in estate planning for persons in the entertainment industry (musicians, songwriters, actors, producers, directors, and writers), as well as owners of closely held businesses.  We also have extensive experience in international planning for U.S. and non-U.S. citizens with multi-national holdings, and counseling non-nuclear and multi-generation families.

Business Succession Planning.  We regularly advise clients in connection with planning for the orderly transfer of management and ownership of a family business to the next generation. In this context, we often prepare complex buy-sell agreements, effectuate lifetime transfers of ownership interests, and use various planning techniques to implement a family’s objectives in a tax efficient manner. We have deep experience addressing the mixture of business and personal objectives facing founding business owners, minority shareholders, and succeeding generations in this context.

Charitable Giving.  We also regularly advise clients in connection with their charitable goals, using private foundations, public charities, split interest trusts (such as the charitable lead trusts and charitable remainder trusts), and direct giving to charitable institutions. In addition, we have experience in assisting donors to assure that the major charitable gifts will be used as intended by the donor, and that the maximum income tax advantages of the gift will be achieved.

Matrimonial Planning. Our practice includes representation of clients in sophisticated prenuptial agreements and postnuptial agreements. Because of our expertise in estate planning, tax matters, and business law, we are able to structure such agreement in a more comprehensive manner than a traditional family law attorney.

BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS

We counsel clients on business formation; represent them in drafting shareholder, partnership, and operating agreements; represent them in private placements with venture capital partners or other strategic investors; and represent them in asset, stock, and other purchases and sales.   The firm brings a value-added approach to the representation of its business owner clients. We strive to provide practical and innovative solutions, whether the client is an entrepreneur setting up business, or an long-established business owner considering the sale of his or her company.  We believe that we bring special expertise to such counseling, combining sophisticated tax planning with practical business advice.   

TAX ADVICE

Because of our deep tax knowledge, we are regularly consulted by accountants, business managers, and even other attorneys in a variety of transactions. For example, structuring a business acquisition or sale, a litigation settlement agreement, or a section 1031 tax-free exchange; preparing tax-related opinions; or restructuring real estate ownership in order to avoid a reassessment under California's Proposition 13.  We also represent clients in income, employment tax, sales tax, estate tax, property tax, and local business tax audits and controversies before the Internal Revenue Service (income, federal payroll taxes, and estate tax); California's Franchise Tax Board (business and individual income tax), State Board of Equalization (sales tax), and Employment Development Department (state payroll taxes); and county and municipal jurisdictions (property tax and business license taxes).