Our Private Client Services Team counsels clients on the full range of estate and gift planning, estate administration, family business governance and transition planning, family office services and dispute resolution matters. The team has extensive experience working with high net worth individuals and multi-generational families, including founders, owners and leaders of businesses and charitable organizations of all sizes.
As a member of your trusted team, we will work closely with your other professional financial and strategic advisors. We develop long-standing relationships with our clients and create customized, personal plans to help them achieve their unique business, estate, charitable and legacy goals. Our team regularly addresses our clients’ evolving legal needs, from cohabitation, prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, estate planning for a young family, wealth transfer and business succession planning later in life, and family office services to grow and preserve wealth and family values across generations.
We provide the full suite of private wealth planning services with a focus on helping you establish your legacy and succession plan, including advising on and drafting of:
Death often brings significant changes in family businesses, partnerships and trusts. Our team combines decades of experience with a sympathetic understanding of the practical issues and family tensions that can surface during this challenging time to ensure family businesses and existing wealth management structures continue to operate soundly. Our experience includes:
Our team provides services to family offices of all sizes and formats to help our clients achieve enhanced control, privacy and customization of a family’s asset allocation, wealth and risk management, and implementation of an overall legacy plan. We understand that the family office format is not static; accordingly, our services adapt and grow to address family needs, which are likely to change over time. Our clients include single individuals who advise family groups, financial institutions and trust companies where family assets may be invested, operating companies owned by the family, and stand-alone family offices ranging from one employee to hundreds.
Prenuptial, cohabitation, postnuptial and property status agreements are among the most important documents in both life and estate planning, yet they are often overlooked. These agreements provide couples, who may or may not be contemplating marriage, with clarity and allow couples to agree on the rules that govern their assets and finances. Our team offers guidance on prenuptial, cohabitation, postnuptial and other forms of property agreements (including agreements with non-U.S. persons or assets) to help protect you and your assets in the event of separation, dissolution or death.
Even the best plans can face controversy. We have extensive experience representing clients in estate and trust dispute resolution, including mediation and, if necessary, litigation, addressing matters such as will contests, trust litigation, guardianship conflicts and federal or state tax controversies. We represent fiduciaries, beneficiaries and family members in probate, trust, guardianship and vulnerable adult litigation. Our clients benefit from our deep understanding of their estates, family dynamics and businesses — all of which we bring to the table when helping them resolve a dispute or litigation matter.
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Our team is recognized in the top band of the Chambers High Net Worth guide for Private Wealth Law in Washington. Chambers’ sources have described Lane Powell as their “go-to firm” for “their largest and most complex trusts and estates work,” and note that we “always do the right thing for the client in all cases.” Members of the team are described as always being “one step ahead in anticipating issues,” “the best litigators in the state,” and “very easy to work with while being capable of the most sophisticated planning.”
We are also consistently ranked highly in the U.S. News – Best Lawyers® annual “Best Law Firms” survey for our work in trusts and estates law. Four of our partners have been elected by their peers as Fellows of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.
We are highly integrated into the communities where we live and work. Attorneys on our team regularly volunteer with or serve on the boards of directors for nonprofit organizations, providing business, tax and strategic advice pro bono. Some of the organizations we are proud to serve include:
Before proceeding, please note: If you are not a current client of Lane Powell PC, please do not include any information in this email that you or someone else considers to be confidential or secret in nature. Prior to the establishment of a lawyer-client relationship, unsolicited emails from non-clients containing confidential or secret information cannot be protected from disclosure.