Best Lawyers Near You in Denver, Colorado for Trusts and Estates
Practice Area Overview
How Can a Trusts and Estates Attorney Help You?
Trust and estate attorneys help clients plan for the efficient and effective transfer of assets to spouses, to younger generation family members, to other persons clients wish to benefit, and to charities. The practice involves the preparation of trust agreements, wills, powers of attorney, medical directives, and closely held business structures, including partnerships, limited liability companies, and corporations.
What are the Trusts and Estates Practices Focal Points?
Wealth Planning
When attorneys begin the planning process, they consider your objectives, your family relationships, charitable inclinations, and the relationship of federal and state estate tax, gift tax, and generation skipping transfer tax laws to these objectives. Attorneys then work with you and, in some cases, with other advisers to design the appropriate plan to meet your goals and objectives, prepare the necessary documents to carry out the desired plan, and assist with the implementation of your plan. In connection with family wealth planning, attorneys plan and draft trust agreements and wills, create various business entities, and carry out business reorganizations.
Estate Administration
Trust and estate attorneys also handle the administration of estates. Attorneys confer with members of a decedent’s family on the various issues, including:
• Assistance to the executor with the preparation of the required probate documents and assist in valuation of estate assets
• Making insurance claims
• Preparation of final income tax returns and the estate’s income and federal and state estate tax returns
• Monitoring of the investment of the estate’s assets
• Arranging for the distribution of the estate’s net assets
• Throughout the administration of an estate, consideration is given to income tax savings through the timing of distributions and the timing and claiming of appropriate deductions.
Trust Administration
In the trust administration area, attorneys advise and consult with corporate and individual trustees concerning the discharge of the trust’s terms and consult with beneficiaries concerning trust administration matters including the preparation of trust accounts.
Trust and Estate attorneys also assist clients in all phases of probate and trust litigation. This may involve construing or reforming the terms of a will or trust, prosecuting or defending a will contest action or surcharge actions against trustees.
What is a Trusts and Estates attorneys goal for its clients?
The goal of an trust and estate attorney is to assist clients to achieve their personal goals while obtaining the significant tax savings which may be available to them through proper planning. Attorneys in the practice spend a significant amount of time dealing with the federal estate, gift, and generation skipping tax issues involved in transfer planning.
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Bud Bourke has extensive experience in business, residential and commercial real estate and tax planning for individuals, partnerships and corporations. He works with individuals (regardless of net worth), executives, closely-held business owners and professionals within Colorado, across the nation, and internationally, to manage their legal and legacy concerns and their multi-generational family businesses. He has years of experience with the preparation of simple and complex estate plans an...
Greg Densen is a partner in Taft’s Private Client group. Greg’s expertise is in probate issues and controversies and tax-based estate and business planning and administration. Greg recently assisted a family with the design and implementation of a business and tax-sensitive plan to transfer management and ownership of 50+ operating companies between generations. He has provided counsel to several families with issues of a similar nature. Greg frequently helps families through the ...
Mr. Richard M. Hess, Jr.,'s AEP®, practice emphasizes wealth preservation and transfer, family philanthropy and the related fields of succession and exit planning for closely-held businesses and professional practices. He assists business partners, entrepreneurs, professional practices, individuals, and family groups in preserving and facilitating the transfer of wealth as well as managing inter-generational philanthropy. Mr. Hess’ practice includes the subspecialties of estate plan...
Paige has extensive experience in both business law and trusts and estates. She advises individuals, families, and business owners on all aspects of estate planning and business succession planning. She has represented clients in a variety of complex wealth and succession transactions, including developing and implementing asset protection strategies and complex gift and estate planning strategies. She assists clients with trust administration and probate proceedings, and also has extensive e...
Keith Lapuyade has more than 30 years of litigation experience. His knowledge of insurance law and bad faith, coupled with his extensive understanding of medical issues, is of particular value in medical malpractice litigation and often brings this special skill-set to bear in the personal representation of physicians, attorneys, and other professionals for purposes of establishing their rights with respect to their insurance coverage and financial well-being. Keith Lapuyade, of the law firm ...
Marcie was born in Greeley, Colorado in 1965. She grew up in Cody, Wyoming and attended Chadron State College in Nebraska where she majored in Criminal Justice. Marcie graduated from the University of Denver College of Law in 1990 and moved to Oregon. She practiced in Oregon for 12 years where her practice initially included creditor's rights and commercial litigation. She then moved into the areas of elder law, estate planning and administration before moving back to Colorado in 2001. Marcie...
Melissa was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1968. She attended Colorado State University (graduating in 1990 with a B.A. in Political Science) and obtained her law degree from the University of Denver in 1994, where she served as an Editor on the Denver Journal of International Law and was a recipient of the American Jurisprudence Award in Estate and Gift Taxation. Melissa studied overseas and attended the University of London while serving as an intern in the House of Commons in London, England i...
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