In the book and movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore, the schoolmaster/sage at Hogwarts (the school for the magically gifted) says that we're not judged by the gifts or abilities we are given but by the choices we make. The...
Approaching the subject of legal ethics is like approaching the Milky Way galaxy. Narrowing the application of the rules of ethics to the typical trusts and estates practice reduces the scope to, perhaps, one solar system. And one of the most...
No wonder prices for luxury and commercial real estate keep rising, despite the stagnant economy. A recent survey of 149 households worth $5 million or more by Spectrem Group, a Chicago consultancy for asset-management firms, found that 82 percent...
Even the most accomplished practitioners sometimes have questions on legal ethics. Trusts & Estates has called on one of the nation's most renowned legal ethicists, Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., to field a few posed by members of the magazine's...
Gideon Rothschild, asset-protection expert and member of the New York law firm Moses & Singer, reports that Utah has just joined the growing number of states providing self-settled trusts for asset protection. Until recently, high-net-worth...
Given that this is America, a land of immigrants that is still absorbing people from around the world, practitioners are likely to have clients who are, or are married to, non-U.S. citizens. The result: Complexities of estate planning are greatly...
Investor sentiment, a powerful driver of financial markets, often toggles between the twin poles of greed and fear. During the bull market of 1995 to 2000, for example, when U.S. equity prices returned more than 20 percent per year, the standard...
This month Andrew M. Parker (Structured Products: Devil in the Details, page 72) joins the Trusts & Estates Advisory Board as a member of the Investments Committee. Parker is director of Equity Risk Management at Bessemer Trust in New York...
Substantial assets are thought to confer great financial freedom. In theory, a large portfolio allows owners to respond quickly to market dynamics and beneficiaries' needs. But large asset pools often include private entities, real estate...
On May 8, 2003, the Internal Revenue Service issued proposed regulations (Reg-164754-01) dealing with the valuation and taxation of benefits that a non-owner receives under an endorsement economic benefit regime equity split dollar arrangement...
