David P. Hassler

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Leaders in Law endorses David P. Hassler as our exclusively recommended Estate & Trust Law expert in the USA – Texas. If you wish to get in touch with David please use the contact information provided above.

Mr. Hassler, practices in the ScottHulse Estate Planning, Probate & Asset Protection practice group. He advises high and mid-net worth individuals and families in estate planning, transfer taxation, asset protection and closely held and family business matters, including charitable, deferred and leveraged giving.

Recognized as one of the leading attorneys in his field, David has been a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) since 1998. He has also been named as one of the Best Lawyers in America since 2003 and a Texas Monthly Magazine Texas Super Lawyer – since 2004. He is Board Certified in Estate Planning & Probate Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specializaion.

David assists high-net-worth individuals with the creation of complex multi-generational wealth transfer estate and wealth preservation plans that implement multiple techniques available to estate planning practitioners. David helps these clients to develop comprehensive, custom plans that go beyond the basic exemption equivalent (or credit shelter) or bypass trust and marital deduction trust planning that is the foundation for any estate plan. These plans also include, when appropriate, full utilization of an individual’s exemptions from the generation-skipping transfer tax with a view towards creating true “dynasty trusts” that extend for multiple generations, if not into perpetuity.

Probate and estate and trust administration are other significant aspects of David’s practice. He advises individual and corporate fiduciaries regarding administration and taxation issues affecting trusts, estates and family owned businesses.

As part of the probate process, David prepares United States Estate Tax Returns (Forms 706) and advises accountants for his clients regarding such returns. David has handled the IRS audit or examination of several Forms 706 over his career, working in opposition to IRS regional Estate Tax Attorneys to resolve valuation and other complex issues raised by IRS upon examination of Forms 706. He has prepared Form 706-NA and Form 706-QDT for the estates of non US citizens, non US resident decedents with substantial assets in the US, and has obtained both partial interim and final IRS Transfer Certificates for purposes of freeing assets of such clients from the IRS estate tax lien.

David is a member of Taxation, Real Estate, Probate and Trust Law, and Corporation, Banking and Business Law Sections of the State Bar of Texas, and served as a member of the Council of the Real Estate, Probate and Trust Law Section from 2007-2011. As a member of the Council, he has participated in the process of preparing the Section’s legislative package of probate, trust and tax laws for consideration by the Texas legislature. REPTL is the largest section within the State Bar with more than 8,800 members.

The State Bar of Texas (SBT) has called on David to speak and chair various advanced courses for estate planning and probate practitioners and serve on course planning committees. He has served on the speaking faculties of the SBT’s Advanced Estate Planning and Probate Course and the Estate Planning and Probate Advanced Drafting Course. He served as Course Director for the SBT’s 2002 Estate Planning and Probate Advanced Drafting Course.

David is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC). Membership in ACTEC is by invitation and is only extended to lawyers who have made significant contributions to the Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Law field through teaching, lecturing, and writing. ACTEC is considered the preeminent organization of estate planning lawyers.

David has the highest Martindale-Hubbell peer rating of AV Preeminent. An AV Preeminent peer rating reflects an attorney who has reached the heights of professional excellence. He or she has usually practiced law for many years, and is recognized for the highest levels of skill and integrity.

Locally, David served as the Course Director for the annual University of Texas at El Paso Estate Planning Conference for Women from 1991 to 2016. In this capacity, he recruited speakers from among El Paso’s estate planning professional groups, including attorneys, accountants, financial advisors, trust officers, and insurance practitioners, and designed a five-week course with a special emphasis on the needs of women and their families.

David has been active in a number of civic and charitable organizations in the El Paso community. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the El Paso Symphony Orchestra Association Foundation. He is a past President of the Board of Directors of the El Paso Division of the American Heart Association, and a former Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Texas State Affiliate of the American Heart Association. David is a past participant in Leadership El Paso, and has served on the boards of directors of El Paso Young Life, the Yucca Council of the Boy Scouts of America, the Texas Tech University Alumni Association, the Texas Tech Law School Alumni Association, the Texas Tech Foundation, Inc. in Lubbock, Texas, the Providence Memorial Hospital Foundation, and the Coronado High School Band Booster Association. He has also taught Engineering Law courses at the University of Texas at El Paso.

David is an active member of Coronado Baptist Church. He and his wife Rosane, a retired educator, have three children: Jeffrey, Bryan, and Katie, and nine grandchildren.

 

Christine L. Albright

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Leaders in Law endorses Christine Albright as our exclusively recommended Estate & Trust Law expert in the USA – Illinois. If you wish to get in touch with Christine, please use the contact information provided above.

Christine L. Albright concentrates on counseling high-net-worth individuals and family groups in all facets of sophisticated wealth and estate planning and protection, estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer taxation, income taxation of estates and trusts, and succession planning for closely held and family businesses. She also represents fiduciaries and beneficiaries of trusts and estates regarding all aspects of trust and estate administration, the review and preparation of estate and generation-skipping transfer tax returns, the analysis of fiduciary income tax matters, and trust construction and reformation suits and other contested trust and estate matters. She represents parties in seeking private letter rulings and in handling tax audits for federal estate, gift, generation-skipping transfer and fiduciary income tax matters.

Ms. Albright’s practice in the wealth and estate planning includes matters such as:

  • structuring and implementing lifetime and testamentary transfers of wealth
  • structuring and managing closely held or family-owned business entities, including partnerships, limited liability companies and corporations
  • tax planning for gifts, sales and initial public offerings of businesses in connection with transferring wealth, and planning for succession of closely held and family-owned businesses
  • structuring and implementing gifts to charitable trusts, private foundations and other charitable entities, and establishing, administering and managing charitable trusts and foundations
  • preparing and implementing prenuptial and postnuptial agreements
  • preparing and analyzing wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and advance directives for healthcare and property, buy-sell and other shareholder agreements, and other ancillary estate planning documents

Ms. Albright is past chair of the American Bar Association’s Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section, a former American College of Trust and Estate Counsel regent and past chair of the Trust Law Committee of The Chicago Bar Association. She has also assisted the American Bar Association in filing several amicus curiae briefs with federal circuit courts regarding federal tax cases in which the courts ruled in favor of the positions taken by the ABA.

Ms. Albright frequently speaks on wealth and estate planning and trust and estate administration issues for various professional groups, such as bar associations, ALI-CLE, the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, and the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning. For a number of years she was an adjunct professor at Northwestern University School of Law, teaching a course on the income taxation of trusts and estates in the Graduate Tax Program.

Holland & Knight LLP:

Holland & Knight is a global law firm with more than 1,200 lawyers and other professionals in 27 offices throughout the world. Our lawyers provide representation in litigation, business, real estate and governmental law. Interdisciplinary practice groups and industry-based teams provide clients with access to attorneys throughout the firm, regardless of location.

Benjamin J. Burnside

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Leaders in Law endorses Benjamin J. Burnside as our exclusively recommended Estate & Trust Law expert in the USA – Arizona. If you wish to get in touch with Ben please use the contact information provided above.

Ben is a Certified Specialist in Estate & Trust Law by the State Bar of Arizona and a Certified Elder Law Attorney by the National Elder Law Foundation. Ben has been elected as a Fellow in the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. He joined Bogutz & Gordon, P.C. in 1999, after having practiced with a Tucson estate planning firm since 1994. He serves on and is past Chair of the State Bar of Arizona Probate & Trust Section Executive Council. Ben earned a B.S. in Commerce from the University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce, a J.D. from the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law and an LL.M. in Taxation from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

He is a Member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and the Pima County Bar Association. He writes and lectures frequently and is active in numerous community organizations, including serving as Chair of the Board of Goodwill Industries of Southern Arizona, Inc. and as a member of the Board of the Southern Arizona Estate Planning Council. Ben and his wife, Dena, a CPA, have traveled extensively to all seven continents, and they now have two children, Josephine and Ethan, who keep them closer to home.

The Estate & Trust Law Practice:

At Bogutz & Gordon, estate planning is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. Estate plans can be as individual as you are, and our job is to advise you on your options and make recommendations for you and your beneficiaries. Our goal is to provide you with the knowledge to make effective choices, and then implement those choices with accurate documents that meet the highest technical standards.
Basic estate planning includes the preparation of Wills, Financial (General) Powers of Attorney and Medical (Health Care) Powers of Attorney, and Living Wills (Advance Directives), all of which are prepared in accordance with Arizona’s very specific laws and requirements.

Bogutz & Gordon is also able to advise on and prepare more advanced arrangements such as Limited Liability Companies, Family Limited Partnerships, Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts (“ILIT’s”), Special Needs Trusts, Qualified Personal Residence Trusts (“QPRT’s”) and Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts (GRAT’s).

Estate planning also involves considering whether your assets are properly titled and whether your beneficiary designations for your IRAs, 401(k)’s, and annuities are appropriate for your situation.

Bogutz and Gordon:

Bogutz & Gordon has been proudly serving the Tucson, Arizona, area since 1984, providing sophisticated services to meet our clients’ estate planning and elder law needs. From the beginning, the goal was to help people in need. In 1984, Allan Bogutz, who had served as Pima County Public Fiduciary, incorporated his own law firm. A few months later, Allan asked Craig Gordon, then working as an attorney at Southern Arizona Legal Aid (SALA), to join him, and the two combined forces. Both were deeply committed to helping people, especially those who cannot help themselves. Allan not only had served as Public Fiduciary, he also had worked at SALA and served in the Peace Corps. Before joining SALA, Craig had used a federal grant from the Administration of Aging to develop a legal education and referral program for Senior Citizens in rural Iowa. With these backgrounds in public service, Allan and Craig brought a unique vision to the firm.

The succeeding 30 years have seen Bogutz & Gordon prosper as one of the pre-eminent elder law firms in the Southwest. Both Allan and Craig have, for the most part moved on, but their goals and ideals carry on among the current staff of attorneys, care managers, paralegals, and support staff.

Alan D. Freer

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Leaders in Law endorses Alan D. Freer as our exclusively recommended Estate & Trust Law expert in the USA – Nevada. If you wish to get in touch with Alan please use the contact information provided above.

Alan D. Freer is a member of the Las Vegas law firm of Solomon Dwiggins & Freer, where he focuses his practice primarily on trust and estate litigation. Mr. Freer also handles all aspects of trust and estate administration, and routinely represents beneficiaries and fiduciaries in contested matters. He has substantial experience in challenging and defending the validity of estate planning documents, including wills, codicils, trusts and amendments. Mr. Freer also routinely prosecutes and defends claims for breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, undue influence, breach of trust, accounting, fiduciary removal, competency, lack of capacity, unjust enrichment, closely held business disputes and elder abuse.

Mr. Freer’s litigation experience covers all aspects of contested matters from pre-litigation case assessment and dispute negotiation, to all stages of litigation, including motion practice, discovery, hearings, depositions, evidentiary hearings, trial practice, mediations and settlement conferences. Mr. Freer also engages in appellate practice in the areas of estates, trusts, guardianships and business litigation, having successfully prosecuted and defended appeals and writs before the Nevada Supreme Court.

Mr. Freer is a member of the State Bar of Nevada and serves on the Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, where he recently finished serving a two year term as committee chair. Additionally, Mr. Freer presently serves as a Co-Chair of the Legislative Committee for the Probate and Trust Section of the Nevada State Bar. Mr. Freer is also a member of the Clark County Bar Association and is licensed to practice law in the State of Nevada and United States District Court for the District of Nevada.

Solomon Dwiggins & Freer:

Located in Las Vegas, Solomon Dwiggins & Freer is an established law firm that is dedicated to representing clients throughout Nevada in estate and trust matters. We handle a wide range of legal issues involving trust and estate litigation, trust and estate administration (probate), estate planning, asset protection, business litigation and tax disputes.

Our firm is led by an experienced legal team, which is composed of estate and trust litigators, estate planning attorneys and tax attorneys. We have represented a wide range of clients and have handled some of the most complex estate and trust cases in the state of Nevada. Solomon Dwiggins & Freer, Ltd. is a trusted resource for effective legal counsel.

The lawyers at our firm have extensive litigation experience, making them uniquely qualified to handle matters involving asset and wealth protection. We understand how to utilize estate and tax planning to fully protect our clients’ interests and how to create a legal strategy that is likely to avoid the possibility of litigation in the future. We are a premier resource for legal guidance in the area of asset protection.

 

Gabriel Bass

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Leaders in Law endorses Gabriel Bass as our exclusively recommended Estate & Trust Law expert in USA – Oklahoma. If you wish to get in touch with Gabriel please use the contact information provided above.

Gabe practices in the areas of business planning, real estate, oil & gas, and estates and trusts. Gabe is equally at ease in the boardroom and the courtroom. He has obtained Martindale-Hubbell’s highest rating of AV® Preeminent™, an indication that his peers rank him at the highest levels of professional excellence. Additionally, he has been recognized by Oklahoma Super Lawyers® and is listed in Best Lawyers in America®.

Gabe was an active duty U.S. Marine prior to joining Bass Law and remains an active member of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve with the current rank of major. He is also an adjunct professor at Oklahoma City University School of Law.

The Estate & Trust Law Practice:

Bass Law attorneys assist clients to plan the transfer of their assets at death to their chosen beneficiaries. Our firm uses estate planning strategies designed to maximize the value of our clients’ estates by minimizing the impact of taxes and the cost of administering the estate. The comprehensive estate plan Bass Law designs for our clients also includes planning for how their affairs will be handled in the event they become incapacitated before their death. In addition, we record a client’s desires for end-of-life health care treatments in the proper legal form so that loved ones do not have to make these difficult decisions.

An estate plan developed by Bass Law Firm normally includes, at a minimum, the following:

  • Last Will and Testament
  • Durable Power of Attorney
  • Health Care Power of Attorney
  • Advanced Directive (also called a “Living Will”)

Bass Law Firm also utilizes a number of trust instruments to carry out our clients’ desires. Some commonly used types of trusts are the following:

  • A Trust (also called a “Marital Trust”)
  • B Trust (also called a “Bypass Trust” or “Credit Shelter Trust “ or “Equivalent Exemption Trust”)
  • QTIP Trust (Qualified Terminal Interest Property)
  • ILIT (Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust)
  • Spendthrift Trust
  • Domestic Asset Protection Trust
  • Charitable Remainder Trust

Bass Law Firm, P.C:

With a reputation for quality, expertise and results dating back to our founding in 1934, Bass Law is focused on serving the needs of business leaders and their families in the areas of litigation, business planning, estates & trusts, real estate and oil & gas. We work with clients who seek sophisticated solutions and a high level of attention to their individual needs.
We provide legal solutions to help good people solve problems and achieve goals in business and life.

We establish long-term relationships and deliver high-quality, results-oriented work efficiently and consistently by being committed, staying organized, practicing open and honest communication, being polite and professional, but firm, and pursuing enduring success.