John Wick - What You Need To Know about the Corporate Transparency Act
Once Removed Episode 24: Expressing Goals and Intent for the Trust
Once Removed Episode 23: Naming Guardians for Minor Children
Once Removed Episode 22: Building Flexibility into the Estate Plan
Once Removed Episode 20: Helping a Beneficiary Purchase a Home
Life After Love Gone Wrong Podcast: Season 3, Episode 6 - Reshaping Your Legacy: Estate Planning After Your Divorce
Charitable Planning With Guest Stephanie Hood: Navigating Complex Rules and Traps for the Unwary
A Primer On Trusts - A Podcast with Janathan Allen
Once Removed Episode 13: It’s 5 o’Clock: Do You Know Where Your Will Is? A Lesson From Aretha Franklin
Once Removed Episode 12: SLATs and the Case of McKim vs. McKim
Once Removed Episode 11: Spousal Lifetime Access Trusts, or SLATs
Digital Planning Podcast Episode: Family Office Technology Solutions
Digital Planning Podcast Episode: The Uniform Electronic Estate Planning Documents Act
What is a self-proving affidavit?
The Importance of Beneficiary Designations
Taking the Sting Out of Death Taxes with Dylan Metzner, Jones & Keller
Basics of Estate Planning
The Case of the Disappearing Trust
Protecting Your Estate Plan from Challenges: No-Contest Clause Explained
The Secret Child
In Gordon v. Gordon, a couple created a revocable trust and named a friend, who provided financial advice, as successor trustee. No. 03-22-00454-CV, 2024 Tex. App. LEXIS 3611 (Tex. App.—Austin May 23, 2024, no pet. history)....more
The recently implemented Corporate Transparency Act (the “CTA”) requires that certain entities report information about themselves and their “beneficial ownership” to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the United...more
Did you know that actions can be taken after you die (i.e., post-mortem) to achieve the best results possible for your testamentary plan? Some estate plans are intentionally structured to give your beneficiaries and your...more
DURING YOUR LIFE - When preparing your estate plan, it is of utmost importance to ensure that you have documents in place so your spouse or another trusted individual can make medical and financial decisions on your...more
Winstead Shareholder David F. Johnson participated in a panel presentation entitled “When One Is Not Enough: Dividing Fiduciary Powers and Dispositions” for the State Bar of Texas’s 29th Advanced Estate Planning Strategies on...more
Offshore Trust and Estate Litigation Update Series – Part I - Trust and estate disputes in both the Cayman Islands and the BVI, and claims against the actions of a trustee/executor or disputes related to an interested...more
When a person dies without a will, the person responsible for managing the estate is called an “administrator”. If the person died with a will, they would normally appoint somebody for this position, an “executor”. Both the...more
When an administrator (or executor) of a California estate is named in a judgment, the attorney drafting the judgment must be careful. A person who acts in a representative capacity should be identified that way in the...more
Drew Baylor is a wildly successful athletic shoe designer for Mercury Sportwear until his world is turned askew when one of the shoes he designed is accused of having a design flaw. Mercury announces a recall; Drew becomes...more
A lot of my work as an estate planning attorney is talking with clients to get a thorough understanding of their assets, family, and planning goals so I can help them carry out those goals. Something I hear frequently, which...more
Asset protection - How to shield your wealth from lawsuits and creditors - Much of estate planning focuses on transferring your wealth to loved ones in a taxefficient manner. But for many people, it’s equally important...more
What Happened: Montgomery Brewster’s minor league baseball career is fizzling. Optimistic Brewster believes his big break is just around the corner, but the break he gets is not the one he expects. ...more
A fiduciary’s failure to disclose material facts to beneficiaries may violate their fiduciary duties. A recent Texas court’s decision outlines the fiduciary’s risks that come with the obligation to disclose....more
Getting remarried? Understand your spouse’s inheritance rights - If you’re getting remarried, you may have very different expectations than you did when you married the first time, especially when it comes to estate...more
When two brothers appointed to serve as coexecutors of their mother’s estate can’t get along in fulfilling their jointly held duty, how does a Virginia court decide which one to remove? In the recent case of Galiotos v....more
Many California trusts confer a lifetime right to income on a person (often the surviving spouse) with the remainder passing to designated survivors upon the income beneficiary’s death. When the income beneficiary dies, is it...more
In a contested estate situation, family members are mad, often fighting mad. A common client question is, “When are we going to court?” Perhaps surprisingly, our usual answer to this is, “Only when everything else has...more
A SPA trust can improve the flexibility of your estate plan - We live in uncertain times. There’s uncertainty about the economy as well as the possibility of tax increases to address the rising federal debt. For example,...more
“The only thing that stays the same is everything changes.” I can hear Tracy Lawrence singing that in my head just as clear as when I first heard it in 1996. I didn’t quite understand it back then, but I do now. Change is a...more
Nobody wants their plans frustrated or ignored by their beneficiaries, the courts or even the executors and trustees left in charge. Half a dozen new and emerging processes and laws now allow fairly easy modifications to...more
A fiduciary is a fancy legal term for the person who will take care of your property for you if you are unable to do it yourself, such as the executor of an estate, the trustee of a trust, or an attorney-in-fact under a power...more
The Probate & Fiduciary Litigation Newsletter compiles recent Trust & Estate cases. Our lawyers are at the forefront of this area of the law, shaping how it is handled in the Probate and Family Court. ...more
In the most recent installment of the McGuireWoods Fiduciary Advisory Services annual multipart series on recent fiduciary cases, developments in the law concerning various topics are examined through the following: Ali v....more
The death of a loved one or close friend is a traumatic experience. In addition to the emotional anguish, those who are charged with dealing with the decedent’s personal and financial affairs following death are often left...more
The discharge of an executor or trustee is the ultimate end-game of most, if not all, estate and trust administrations. Affording that kind of comfort level to the fiduciary can be accomplished in one of two ways,...more