K&L Gates' Private Clients practice counsels individuals and families throughout their lifetimes as they acquire and accumulate assets, experience life changes such as marriage and the birth or adoption of a child, seek to preserve their wealth and ultimately pass it on to future generations as tax-efficiently as possible.  Through close working relationships, we learn what matters to a client, then tailor our advice accordingly, taking our clients to whatever level of sophistication they believe is sensible for them.  Our clients include business owners, entrepreneurs, executives, celebrities, artists, non-citizens of the United States, persons with newly-acquired wealth and persons with inherited wealth.  We apply our extensive transactional and litigation experience to fashion appropriate solutions to our clients' needs.  Regardless of our clients' styles and goals we take pride in addressing their concerns in a clear and understandable manner.
 
The K&L Gates Private Client practice is broadly divided into three categories:

• Lifetime tax planning
  Our practice embraces general domestic estate planning, as well as international estate planning for clients with multi-jurisdictional tax and asset issues.  We frequently advise in multi-generational family situations, often where the family concerned owns a family or closely-held business.
  
  
• Tax and Trust Litigation
  Tax and trust or estate-related litigation is a highly specialized area.  Our Private Clients group includes lawyers who have extensive litigation experience, particularly in advising high net worth individuals, beneficiaries, professional or private executors and trustees in disputes involving will contests, the interpretation of wills and trusts, breaches of fiduciary duty, the administration of trusts and estates and tax controversies.
  
  
• Wills, Probate and Administration of Estates
  The Private Clients group handles all aspects of domestic and international estate and settlement, including the probate of wills, the collection of estate assets and post-mortem tax planning.

Lifetime Planning
In the area of lifetime planning, our practice embraces general estate planning, transfer tax planning, international estate planning, personal income tax planning, business succession planning, and charitable gift planning.  With its significant presence across the United States, K&L Gates' Private Client group is uniquely positioned to address the lifetime planning needs of its clients in a comprehensive and seamless manner.

General Estate Planning
Due to the Private Clients group's interest in and commitment to helping individuals and families create sensible plans for reducing tax and protecting assets for future generations, general (core) estate planning forms a significant portion of our practice and can include:

• Creating estate plans consisting generally of wills and trusts for individuals, including:
• Simple and complex plans;
• Plans for both U.S. and non-U.S. citizens;
• Plans that include marital deduction provisions;
• Plans that include multigenerational provisions, including dynasty trusts;
• Plans that include charitable provisions;
• Plans addressing community property and separate property issues;
• Plans that address any special family circumstances, such as children who are disabled or receiving governmental benefits; second marriages and so-called "nontraditional" families; and
• Plans that address international property and tax issues for our United States resident estate planning clients who own interests abroad and our estate planning clients who are neither citizens of nor residents in the United States.
• Advice with regard to nonprobate assets, such as employee benefits and life insurance;
• Creating durable powers of attorney, living wills and health care proxies, and revocable "living" trusts, all designed to minimize possible future cumbersome court involvement; and
• Negotiating and preparing prenuptial agreements.

Transfer Tax Planning
For those clients of the Private Clients group who are currently, or may become, subject to the US federal estate tax, we can explore a diverse array of techniques designed to reduce or even eliminate that tax.  The current complexity and uncertainty of the estate and gift tax law complicates planning, and hedging strategies and techniques will be appropriate for many.  State transfer taxes add further potential liabilities for some of our clients.  Depending on our client's appetite for complexity and aggressiveness, such strategies and techniques can include:

• Charitable giving devices
• Lifetime gift programs involving transfers of cash, securities, life insurance policies and real property, both outright and via irrevocable trusts, including:
• Irrevocable insurance trusts;
• Irrevocable gift trusts for minors and adults;
• Intentionally defective grantor income tax trusts ("IDGITs"), including installment sales to such trusts;
• Qualified personal residence trusts ("QPRTs");
• Grantor retained annuity trusts ("GRATs");
• Qualified terminable interest property trusts ("QTIPs");
• Net income trusts; 
• Creation of conservation restrictions on real property; and
• Creation and structuring of family or closely-held corporations, limited partnerships and limited liability companies.

Upon request, we will prepare any gift tax returns needed to report properly any of the above transactions to the IRS.

Transfer tax planning occurs in a rapidly evolving environment and we are committed to responding nimbly to those changes.

International Estate Planning
With our resources in our offices in Beijing, Hong Kong and Taipei, as well as in Europe, K&L Gates' Private Clients group is able to implement the strategies required for the cross-border tax planning needs of our clients.  Such international estate planning issues include:

• For our clients who are neither United States citizens nor United States residents, structuring their investments in the United States and any gifts by them to avoid United States gift and estate tax consequences;
• Planning for migration into and expatriation from the United States and other jurisdictions;
• Use of offshore life insurance and annuities; and
• Use of offshore and onshore trusts.

Personal Income Tax Planning
The Private Client group advises our clients with regard to their qualified retirement plan and IRA withdrawals and beneficiary designations, and their other employee benefits including deferred compensation plans and stock options, drawing on the expertise of K&L Gates' employee benefits practice group as appropriate.

Business Succession Planning
Many of the Private Client group's clients own family or closely-held businesses.  We counsel these clients on the options available to keep a family business intact for the next generations, in light of ownership, management and tax issues.  Drawing on the expertise of K&L Gates' corporate group as appropriate, such options include:

• Techniques available to reduce future estate and gift taxes on the business, including methods available to shift growth in assets to younger generations, and structures to pass growth well in advance of public offerings, liquidity events and other events triggering a rapid appreciation in value;
• Structuring the acquisition and transfer of business interests between senior generation and younger generation owners
• Negotiation and preparation of:
• Stock restriction agreements;
• Cross purchase agreements; and
• Stock redemption agreements.
• Methods of funding cross purchase and stock redemption agreements, including life insurance; and
• Methods of equalizing shares of family members who do not participate in the business.

Charitable Gift Planning
Many of our clients have charitable goals.  We can explore a diverse array of techniques tailored specifically to achieve those goals, while doing so in as tax-favored a manner as possible.  Drawing on the expertise of K&L Gates' nonprofit institutions/organizations group as appropriate, such techniques include:

• Charitable remainder trusts;
• Charitable lead trusts;
• Gifts of artwork and other tangible personal property;
• Private foundations; and 
• Donor advised funds.

Other Private Client Needs
In conjunction with other K&L Gates practice groups, we can assist our clients with diverse related needs, such as acquisitions and sales of real estate, boats, airplanes and other high-value personal use assets.

Tax, Estates And Trust Litigation
In the area of tax, estates and trust litigation, our practice embraces estates and trusts litigation and guardianship matters and adoption matters.  With its significant presence across the United States, K&L Gates' Private Client group is uniquely positioned to address the tax, estates and trust litigation needs of its clients in a comprehensive and seamless manner.

Estates And Trusts Litigation
Estates and trusts litigation is a highly specialized area.  The Private Client group includes several lawyers who have extensive experience with such litigation, including:

• Will contests;
• Disputes concerning the interpretation of wills and trusts;
• Disputes concerning the administration of trusts and estates;
• Fiduciary surcharge cases;
• Contested guardianships of the person and property of mentally ill and mentally retarded persons, including guardianships with commitment and extraordinary medical treatment authority; and
• "Friendly" trust reformations to achieve tax or other goals. 
• Gift and estate tax controversies with the Internal Revenue Service.

Guardianship Matters
The Private Clients group takes care to recommend proactive measures during the estate planning process designed to avoid complications that could arise in the future should our client or a family member experience personal issues.  Such steps include creating durable powers of attorney, living wills and health care proxies, and revocable "living" trusts, all designed to minimize possible future probate court involvement.

If such proactive measures have not been taken, the Private Clients group has the expertise to explore with the family how best to address personal issues as they might arise.  Depending on the special circumstances and the family's values and priorities, potential courses of action include:

• Obtaining a guardianship or conservatorship in a court proceeding;
• Obtaining court authority to take estate planning steps on behalf of an incapacitated person; or
• In extreme circumstances, obtaining commitment and extraordinary medical treatment authority from the court.

Domestic Relations Matters
The Private Clients group includes several lawyers who have extensive experience with marital dissolution litigation involving complex financial situations.

Wills, Probate And The Administration Of Estates
In the area of wills, probate and the administration of estates, our practice embraces trust and estate administration and wealth management.

Trust And Estate Administration
With its significant presence across the United States, K&L Gates' Private Client group is uniquely positioned to address the trust administration and estate settlement needs of its clients in a comprehensive and seamless manner in jurisdictions throughout the United States and beyond.  Such services include:

• Probating of Wills;
• Collection of estate assets;
• Representation in court proceedings;
• Post-mortem tax-planning advice, including the preparation of disclaimers and advice in connection with post-mortem tax elections;
• Preparation of estate tax and fiduciary income tax returns, including the handling of IRS audits and tax litigation in the Tax Court and other venues;
• Sales of real estate and other assets as appropriate;
• Distribution of estate assets;
• Allowance of accounts of executors and trustees; and
• Advice in connection with distributions from IRAs and other qualified retirement plans.

Wealth Management
K&L Gates, as successor to Warner & Stackpole LLP, has been administering trusts and managing assets held in trusts within our Private Clients group for most of the time since Warner & Stackpole's organization in 1874.

A significant number of lawyers in the firm have substantial experience in trust law, estate planning and income and estate tax issues and have accumulated substantial fiduciary and investment experience serving as Trustee or Co-trustee of various types of trusts created by the firm's clients.  The firm currently has approximately 150 trusts under management, including testamentary trusts and both revocable and irrevocable inter vivos trusts.  The aggregate fair market value of these trusts, plus fiduciary assets held in estates and agencies, currently is in excess of $300,000,000.

The firm has an Investment Committee, comprised of a number of its lawyers who serve as Trustee or Co-trustee of one or more of these trusts.  The Committee reviews the investment positions of the trusts on a regular ongoing basis.  The firm employs Eaton Vance Investment Counsel, a professional investment advisory firm, to review the investments of each trust and to advise the Investment Committee and the Trustees.

The firm uses the custodial services of State Street Bank & Trust Company for its fiduciary assets, and has its own computer system for maintaining all of the necessary record-keeping and accounting for each of these trusts.  The firm uses the services of an independent accounting firm for the preparation and filing of appropriate fiduciary income tax returns and tax information schedules for the trust beneficiaries.