Sherman & Howard’s Trusts & Estate Planning attorneys possess extensive experience in helping clients balance family, business, tax, and legal considerations. From structuring family investment vehicles and business succession planning to income tax planning and charitable giving, our team advises clients on how best to protect their families, preserve their wealth, safeguard their companies, and achieve their personal, business, and tax goals.
We develop long-standing relationships with families, often advising clients through multiple generations. In fact, one family has been a client since our firm’s founding in 1892. Clients come to us because they know they can rely on us for creative and strategic counsel and assistance with wealth transfer planning and implementation. We regularly advise individuals and their families, business owners, entrepreneurs, and professionals regarding all aspects of trusts, estates, gift planning, and multigenerational tax planning. Further, we provide guidance to family offices on entity structuring, management, partnership and operating agreements, business succession planning, avoiding tax liability and other pitfalls, and ensuring a smooth transition of their privately owned businesses.
Regularly recognized for longevity, continuity of client relationships over generations, deep knowledge of trust, estate, and tax laws, extensive experience, and sophisticated wealth transfer strategies, Sherman & Howard lawyers use a wide variety of gift and estate planning strategies, crafting trusts and estate plans tailored to our clients’ individual needs and goals. We also assist clients with prenuptial agreements and postmarital agreements and have a strong record of success in resolving trust, estate, and will-related controversies, disputes regarding fiduciary duties, and tax controversies with the IRS.
As a full-service law firm, Sherman & Howard can assist clients with all of their personal and business legal needs, offering comprehensive guidance and seamless service.
We listen closely to our clients to gain a clear understanding of their personal and financial circumstances, their objectives for their businesses, concerns, and specific goals for their business or investment assets, families, and philanthropy. Then we design bespoke trust and estate plans to preserve their wealth and transfer funds in accordance with their intent.
Our lawyers regularly collaborate with our clients’ family offices, accountants, insurance professionals, investment advisors, and other professionals to assess and address tax, accounting, and insurance risks, and to help our clients identify and leverage opportunities. Utilizing wills, trusts, gift planning, generation-skipping transfer-tax strategies, and other sophisticated techniques, we create plans with flexibility to adapt to unexpected circumstances and changes in the law.
Our comprehensive range of trusts and estate-related services include:
