In theory, a trust is administered to effectuate a grantor's intentions for establishing it. In practice, most trusts don't accomplish this goal. That's usually because the operative documents fail to provide sufficient guidance. Trustees are left...

Benchmarking has long been standard operating practice in the manufacturing industry. In the last 20 years, it's gotten more attention in the service industry. And now family offices are beginning to think about how they too can measure...

Whatever happens to estate taxes, there will still be a strong need for putting together trusts and insurance policies that enable your clients' assets to survive their death intact.

Advisors can help clients with college-bound children make the most of changes in two popular savings plans

When a client passes away you are still obligated to act in his best interest. If you don't, you may wind up wishing you could join them.

Lawyers often see family members get ugly over assets. Rarely, though, does the nastiness literally explode, sending one of the parties to meet his maker. But that's exactly what happened in the case of Dr. Nicholas Bartha and his ex-wife Cordula...

From David T. Leibell and Daniel L. Daniels, principals in Cummings & Lockwood LLC in Stamford, Conn., we have this update: The Internal Revenue Service has ruled that a charitable remainder trust's investment in a private equity fund did not...

If an asset is to qualify for the federal estate tax marital deduction as qualified terminal interest property (QTIP), the decedent's surviving spouse must be entitled to all of the income for life from such asset.1 When an individual retirement...

As estate planners, we love helping people, and as attorneys, we need to bill hours. So when we can help people and bill hours at the same time, you'd think that we would be elated. Not necessarily. A large part of our practice in recent years has...