Estate Planning and Administration

Holland & Knight’s Estate Planning and Administration lawyers engage in all forms of estate planning (both domestic and international), ranging from the preparation of traditional wills and revocable trusts to more complicated planning, such as family limited partnerships, sales to intentionally defective irrevocable trusts and business succession planning. Other common planning matters include lifetime gift programs, charitable split interest trusts, off-shore trusts, private foundations, grantor retained annuity trusts, generation-skipping transfer tax planning and life insurance planning (including irrevocable life insurance trusts and split dollar arrangements).

We also engage in all aspects of probate and trust administration, both domiciliary and ancillary. In addition to the administration process, tax-related activities for estates regularly include the preparation of estate tax and income tax returns, representation in estate tax controversies, and a full range of post-mortem planning (including qualified disclaimers and the use of the credit for tax on prior transfers).

With trial experience in probate and trust litigation based throughout the U.S., we are equipped to handle complex probate litigation and regularly represent corporate and individual fiduciaries, charitable organizations, individuals and family businesses. We regularly handle will and trust contests, the defense and prosecution of fiduciary surcharge proceedings, contested conservatorship and guardianship matters, will and trust construction, interpretation and reformation proceedings, and estate and gift tax litigation matters in many different state courts and the United States Tax Court. Our trusts and estates advisors work closely with dispute resolution specialists to achieve optimum results through negotiation, litigation, trial, appeal and alternative dispute resolution methods.