Trusts, Estates and Fiduciary Dispute Resolution
Holland & Knight's Trusts, Estates and Fiduciary Dispute Resolution Team has extensive experience in the field of trusts and estates, both in mediating disputes and litigating them in probate courts. The knowledge and experience of our seasoned trust, estate and tax practitioners, combined with the litigation skills of our trial lawyers, provides clients the benefit of all pertinent legal disciplines. Our multidisciplinary team has resolved complex disputes via negotiation and settlement as well as litigation. The experience of our Private Wealth Services Group - with nearly 100 members - combined with our comfort in the Probate Courts makes us well-equipped to protect your interests.
Our dispute resolution attorneys are an integral part of Holland & Knight’s Private Wealth Services Group, which has the single largest number of Fellows in the prestigious American College of Trust & Estate Counsel (ACTEC). Our private wealth services attorneys are at the forefront of developments in the trust and estate legal field and are active in the industry, regularly publishing articles and delivering presentations to other attorneys, CPAs, trust officers, associations and public governing bodies. In addition, our Private Wealth Services Group is consistently recognized among the leaders in their field by national and international publications. The 2011-12 U.S. News - Best Lawyers "Best Law Firms" guide placed Holland & Knight's Trusts & Estates Litigation practice in its first tier nationally.
Client Representation
Members of our Trusts, Estates and Fiduciary Dispute Resolution Team primarily represent corporate and individual trustees, executors, administrators, guardians, conservators and conservatees. We counsel clients in litigation prevention, dispute settlement and litigation involving the prosecution or defense of various issues, including:
- complaints for breach of fiduciary duty
- self-dealing and conflicts of interest
- complaints for instructions
- complaints for reformation
- complaints for removal of fiduciaries
- will and trust contests
Our finance litigation attorneys counsel clients and, if necessary, litigate trust law and estate law issues that arise from the following:
- duties with respect to trust investment and administration
- duties to administer a trust
- duties of loyalty
- duties of impartiality
- duties to segregate trust property
- duties of delegation
- duties of successor trustee with respect to acts of predecessor
- duties to report and account to beneficiaries
- duties regarding claims and actions against estates and trusts
- duties with respect to co-trustees
- remedies for breach of trust and self-dealing
- the appropriate measure of damages
- the availability of punitive damages
- incapacity or lack of competence
- undue influence
- negligent conduct by a fiduciary
- fraudulent conduct by a fiduciary
Litigation Prevention
Corporate, charitable and individual fiduciaries alike are held to the highest standards of fiduciary duty, good faith and accountability, which is why fiduciaries and their attorneys retain us to review and consult on their policies, practices and proposed actions. Members of our Trusts, Estates and Fiduciary Dispute Resolution Team examine and measure our clients' current policies and practices against national or state standards for acceptable fiduciary conduct, such as the Uniform Prudent Investor Act, Uniform Principal and Income Act and malpractice standards. We then recommend appropriate changes for those policies, practices and specific actions, following up periodically to ensure ongoing effective implementation.
Dispute Settlement
Our team seeks all court-sanctioned means to resolve disputes out of court, including private settlements, mediation or arbitration. We aim to gain the most favorable settlement arrangements for you through our research, knowledge and vast experience in these areas of the law.
Research. Thorough and comprehensive research necessarily involves labor-intensive and meticulous review and subsequent analysis of all documents and chronological development on the disputed matter – a necessity that enables us to fully understand the strengths and weaknesses of both the opposing party and those of our client. Attorneys from our Trusts, Estates and Fiduciary Dispute Resolution Team are trained to use this research to expose the opposing parties’ weaknesses and fortify our clients’ position.
Knowledge and Experience. Our team’s knowledge includes a complete understanding of all facets of trusts and estates law and the respective legal trends in subject states and across the country. Our experience reflects the effective application of this comprehensive knowledge, the formalities of the Probate Courts and the adjudicating tendencies of its judges. Experience is never developed overnight, but rather, as with our Trusts, Estates and Fiduciary Dispute Resolution Team, it is honed, refined and battle-tested after years of negotiating settlements and litigation. Our team is dedicated to obtaining favorable settlements in contested trust, estate and fiduciary matters, even when our clients’ positions initially seemed vulnerable to attack.
Trial Work
Failing resolution prior to trial, we engage our seasoned trial experts. Our team has substantial knowledge and experience in the complexities of fiduciary litigation and all types of probate issues. We have represented clients in local, civil, probate and surrogate courts and the United States Supreme Court as sole or co-counsel and have appeared pro hac vice in numerous jurisdictions across the country.
Our dispute resolution attorneys provide clients with distinct strategic and tactical advantages given our extensive knowledge of Probate Codes and the nuanced procedures of the probate and surrogate courts – the statutory authority and venue under which nearly all trust, probate, guardianship and conservatorship matters are adjudicated. To effectively and efficiently offer counsel, we apply a collaborative and cross-disciplinary analytical approach with other disciplines such as estate planning for high-net-worth clients, trust and probate administration, real estate, bankruptcy, corporate and securities law, as well as complex civil and appellate law.
Representative Engagements
We defend our clients’ interests against the full array of trust, estate and fiduciary disputes, complaints and claims, including:
- representation of multiple individual trustees in trust disputes
- representation of multiple individual beneficiaries in will and trust disputes
- representation of two trustees in a suit alleging failure to diversify a highly concentrated position in stock which had been placed in a GRAT where the claimed damages were over $20 million
- representation of the unborn and unascertained issue of a putative child of a man who died leaving a large trust fund that was to be divided equally into shares for his issue
- representation of a New York trust bank in a dispute with its two individual co-trustees of two trusts collectively valued in excess of $100 million
- representation of a bank in defense of a claim by the administrator of a decedent's estate which argued the bank improperly paid out over $650,000 to the decedent's fiancée as surviving tenant on certain accounts
- representation of a national financial institution serving as trustee of a funded revocable trust that also will receive the estate of the donor, who is still living but had been declared incompetent by the court after substantial litigation
- representation of a national financial institution in connection with trusts with concentrated asset holdings
- representation of a national financial institution in litigation by beneficiaries and a co-trustee concerning the institution's investment performance
- representation of a large national bank in defense of suits for damages by wealthy well-known beneficiaries
- representation of a major trust bank in will contests
- representation of a large national bank in surcharge litigation