Year-End Estate and Tax Planning: Navigating New Legislation and Drafting Strategies to Mitigate Administrative and Litigation Issues

David Fowler Johnson | Winstead PC

Through his trial and appellate experience, David aggressively strives to obtain the absolute best results possible for his clients. David maintains active trial and appellate practice. David has consistently worked on fiduciary litigation matters as both trial and appellate counsel throughout his career. David has specialized in estate and trust disputes including will contests, mental competency issues, undue influence, trust modification/clarification, breach of fiduciary duty and related claims, and accounting.

David’s recent trial experience includes: , Representing a bank in federal class action suit where trust beneficiaries challenged whether the bank was the authorized trustee of over 220 trusts; Representing a bank in state court regarding claims that it mismanaged oil and gas assets; Representing a bank who filed suit in probate court to modify three trusts to remove a charitable beneficiary that had substantially changed operations; Represented an individual executor of an estate against claims raised by a beneficiary for breach of fiduciary duty and an accounting; and Represented an individual trustee against claims raised by a beneficiary for breach of fiduciary duty, mental competence of the settlor, and undue influence.

David is the primary author of the Texas Fiduciary Litigator blog, which reports on legal cases and issues impacting the fiduciary field in Texas. David is a unique lawyer in that he has extensive trial and appellate experience, which has resulted in his achieving board certifications in civil trial law, civil appellate, and personal injury trial law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Out of approximately 84,000 licensed attorneys in Texas, David is one of less than twenty attorneys with this particular triple certification in civil appellate, civil trial and personal injury trial law. David is also a member of the Civil Trial Law Commission of the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. This commission writes and grades the exam for new applicants for civil trial law certification.

Kenneth J. Fair | Wright Close & Barger, LLP

Ken’s practice focuses on in the area of general commercial litigation, with an emphasis on complex probate, trust, and fiduciary litigation. He represents executors, trustees, and beneficiaries in will contests, disputes over will and trust interpretation, removal actions, and fiduciary-liability actions. He also handles cases involving real-estate brokerage contracts, corporate governance, bankruptcy, and construction contracts. For 2019 Ken has been selected by his peers as among the Best Lawyers in America® in the category of Trusts and Estates Litigation, as published by RL Rankings, LLC.

Ken is originally from Huntsville, Texas. Before joining the firm, Ken worked with Campbell Harrison & Dagley, and at the Houston office of Andrews Kurth LLP. He also worked as a staff writer and senior development editor for Jones McClure Publishing, which publishes the O’Connor’s series of legal practitioner’s guides. Along with firm attorney Suzanne Goss, Ken is a co-author of O’Connor’s Estates Code Plus (previously O’Connor’s Probate Code Plus), which is now in its eleventh edition. He is also a past contributing editor for O’Connor’s Texas Causes of Action, O’Connor’s Family Law Handbook, and O’Connor’s Texas Rules-Civil Trials.

Brittany Cook | AlTi Tiedemann Global

Brittany Horn Cook is a Managing Director at Tiedemann Trust Company, where she acts as a Wealth Planner and Fiduciary Council working with UHNW clients and their advisors across the country to develop and administer custom trust, tax, and estate planning solutions. She earned a B.A. from Hamilton College and her J.D. from Rutgers University and received an LL.M. in Taxation and Estate Planning Certification from Temple University.

Session I – Trust Planning with an Eye Towards Administration and Litigation | 1:00pm – 2:00pm

• Trustees with little knowledge or mistaken ideas of how to implement the estate plan
• Conflicts between beneficiaries
• Innocent breaches of fiduciary duties
• The “black sheep” problem

Break | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

Session II – Smart & Strategic Estate Planning: Gifting, Exemptions, And Tax Moves Before Year-End | 2:10pm – 3:10pm

• Review past, present, and future tax exemptions: What happens at sunset and what is proposed under the Big Beautiful Bill
• Maximizing the exemptions, removing appreciation and gifting complex assets
• Spousal Gifting: Married couples with large estates should consider strategies that maximize each spouse’s exemption, such as one spouse fully utilizing his or her exemption
• Advanced planning techniques:
  • GRATs: Rates are in flux and so is the market when’s the right time to fund or freeze?
  • CRUTs: carry forward deductions and valuations on complex assets
  • FLPs: Valuation discounts

Break | 3:10pm – 3:20pm

Session III – Selected Ethical Considerations in Trust and Estate Drafting | 3:20pm – 4:20pm

• An attorney’s ethical obligation to investigate and intercede regarding the competence or undue influence of a client (Rule 1.14 and Rule 1.2)
• An attorney’s ethical considerations, and the practical issues involved in, naming a fiduciary in trust and estate documents (Rule 1.8)
• An attorney’s ethical considerations in representing multiple parties in estate and trust drafting (Rule 1.7)