Our Practice

Our firm assists individuals, families, family offices, and fiduciaries with the efficient transfer and administration of wealth.  Our planning and counsel are based on expertise in the areas of estate planning, probate, trust and estate administration, federal transfer (estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer) tax, federal income tax, state law filing entities, marital property, and charitable giving. 

We charge clients flat fees for some services and on an hourly basis for others.  We provide fee details to prospective clients on a confidential basis.

Substantially all our new clients engage us by way of a referral from an existing client or another individual with whom we have a personal relationship.  Most of our clients are based in Dallas, Texas but we also serve clients across Texas and outside Texas. 

We do not expressly limit our engagements to a minimum personal net worth, but our style of practice best serves clients with sensitive planning and administration issues and potential transfer tax exposure.  

Services Provided

    • Wills

    • Revocable Trusts

    • Disability planning documents

    • Beneficiary designations for retirement plan accounts and life insurance policies

    • Appropriately titling assets

    • Tax and asset-protection-driven testamentary trusts for spouses and descendants

    • Gifts and sales to irrevocable trusts

    • Irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs)

    • Grantor retained annuity trusts and unitrusts

    • Qualified personal residence trusts

    • Intra-family loans and sales

    • Asset protection planning

    • Business succession planning

    • Income, gift, estate, and GST tax aspects of lifetime transfers

    • Nontaxable gifts, including outright gifts, gifts to 529 accounts, and direct payment of tuition and medical expenses of others

    • Preparation of federal gift tax returns (Form 709)

    • Limited partnerships

    • Limited liability companies

    • Entities classified as S corporations

    • Other closely-held entities

    • Applicable federal income tax and transfer tax aspects of entities

    • Routine corporate governance

    • Premarital agreements

    • Marital property agreements

    • Marital property aspects of testamentary and inter-vivos transfers

    • Maintenance of separate property

    • Advice regarding interpretation of wills

    • Texas probate

    • Fact-gathering, collection and distribution of estate assets

    • Advice regarding collection, administration, and distribution of property

    • Estate tax return preparation (Form 706)

    • Advice regarding interpretation of trust agreements

    • Trustee succession

    • Modifying irrevocable trusts through judicial or non-judicial means

    • Trust termination

    • Receipt, release, and indemnity agreements

    • GST tax return preparation (Form 706-GS(T))

    • Private foundations

    • Split-interest charitable trusts

    • Other forms of charitable giving, such as gifts to donor advised funds

Services Not Provided

As a boutique firm, we limit our areas of practice, and we refer to other attorneys matters outside our scope of expertise.  Some types of matters that may be related to our practice area, but which we do not handle, are as follows:

  • Litigation, such as fiduciary litigation and will contests

  • Offshore trust planning

  • Self-settled irrevocable trusts (678 Trusts)

  • Guardianship

  • Elder law

  • General corporate work

  • Corporate Transparency Act compliance

  • Preparation of federal income tax returns

  • Preparation of Texas franchise tax returns

  • Oil and gas

  • Real estate

  • Divorce