We know a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. Here's a variation on that old saw: The lawyer whose client is a litigious lawyer is a fool not to settle if he can. Renowned tax attorney Stanley Bergman of Withers Bergman LLP is...
Old school lawyers who focus on client estate plans earn the least, but are satisfied with their lots. New-fangled lawyers, who go so far as to take commissions on life insurance and fees for investment management, earn the most, and they too are...
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., said it best: The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.1 This means the law's ability to accommodate change will always lag behind legal innovation. In the interim, lawyers must fit new...
The 2001 Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (EGTRRA) has seriously affected estate planning in jurisdictions throughout the country. Not only has the phase-out of the state death tax credit created situations in which combined state...
Seniors suffer a variety of maladies that may look like senility or dementia but aren't. Some can be reversed. Assuming seniors are beyond hope can rob them and their family members. Identifying and treating these medical problems can actually...
Lehman Brothers hired Holly Isdale as managing director and head of strategic wealth services within its private client group. She focuses on providing wealth services to ultra-high-net-worth clients, foundations and endowments, and reports to...
MFS Investment Management and Morgan Stanley's announcements in March that they will no longer pay soft dollars to brokerages for third-party research might be the snowflake that causes an avalanche. Many observers believe the announcements signal...
To measure Janus Mercury's fortunes in newspaper column inches is to believe the fund is a disaster. An aggressive growth specialist, Mercury suffered big losses in 2000 and 2001. That was followed by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer...
Back in 1981, when Philip J. Purcell helped engineer the odd-sounding merger of Sears Roebuck and Dean Witter, he had a vision. He knew the 401(k) legislation encouraging people to invest for retirement would create a voracious appetite for mutual...
The long parade of securities scandals has convinced broker/dealers to apply some prophylactic measures to their fee-based accounts. Registered reps at the major b/ds say their managements have been heavily scrutinizing whether certain accounts...
