ACTEC Fellows

This session will explore the challenges that lawyers serving as trustees face, focusing on the practical aspects of organizing your practice to allow for fiduciary service, and whether "the juice is worth the squeeze" for you.

This program provides a technical overview of pre-transaction planning strategies relevant to the sale of closely held and family-owned businesses. The session will examine key legal, tax, and structuring considerations that arise prior to a liquidity event. The program will cover the mechanics and planning implications of ESOP transactions, the use of MSO structures in certain industries, and the requirements and limitations associated with QSBS treatment under Section 1202. In addition, presenters will review charitable planning strategies, including pre-sale gifting techniques, and their impact on transaction economics. Emphasis will be placed on identifying planning opportunities, understanding eligibility requirements, and coordinating strategies within appropriate timelines to optimize client outcomes.

Even the most seasoned fiduciary can be haunted by the risks inherent in estate and trust administration. This program follows the story of Linda Lawyer, who after a long day battling towering files and thorny legal issues drifts into a restless sleep. As Linda's mind wanders, the closet door creaks open and routine files morph into professional nightmares. Through Linda's dreams, we uncover the liabilities lurking in office shadows and explore the complex and often hidden risks that keep fiduciaries awake at night. Using engaging case studies and practical risk management strategies, this program illuminates the pressures shaping the fiduciary landscape and provides participants with tools to confront these monsters before they emerge.

The end of life is just the beginning for many required processes and decisions. This panel presentation will guide you through the steps when a spouse dies, from understanding the survivor's grief process and immediate actions that must be considered, to establishing the administration process, determining the survivor's legal rights and obligations, identifying tax issues, allocations and other post-mortem planning opportunities, through analyzing the impact of death on the overall wealth transfer structure and resulting administration responsibilities, while also navigating potential conflicts among beneficiaries.

From key general considerations when spouses are divorcing, to issues dividing property, to determining if trust assets are accessible or off-limits, to hidden tax traps, to maneuvering among significant state law variances, to determining who owns genetic material, to planning opportunities before the divorce is final, to ethical and representation issues for attorneys representing married couples, this panel will provide practical guidance and top tips to help you advise divorcing clients how to play a winning hand.

This panel will provide practitioner insights regarding lifetime and testamentary planning considerations for married couples, including when representation should be joint versus separate, when to use SLATs, SLANTs, QTIPs and CRTs, issues surrounding community property, and what provisions should be included in contemplation of potential divorce. There's so much to love with these lifetime and testamentary planning techniques!

What should the various stake holders consider when planning for an upcoming marriage? This panel will explore the emotional considerations, ethical issues, and practical approaches to potential consequences for families with a new marriage. Prenuptial agreements will be considered, along with creative work arounds or by drafting trust provisions and side wishes to encourage prenuptial agreements. The panel will discuss considerations around bringing a new spouse into the existing planning at a first marriage and encouraging protection of existing planning when the marriage is not the first one. The panel will present the information in the context of default laws and conflicts of laws considerations.

Our panel reviews topics such as: How to protect your searches from prying eyes (aka, how to protect privileges) The impact on billing rates when using AI • Implementing AI in a safe way into your practice – confidentiality and privilege • Avoiding work slop – using AI in an effective and efficient manner • How to deal with clients who use AI to do their own estate and tax research • Guidelines for your employees on how they will use it • Ethics – supervision of younger lawyers

The Hot Topics Program features a dynamic blend of federal tax and state fiduciary law developments during the past year. Among the topics addressed are: • The impact of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, H.R. 1, including the 2/37th cutback on itemized deductions, and ACTEC's comments thereto; • Estate planning in light of the permanent estate and gift tax exclusion amount of $15 million (subject to indexing) beginning on January 1, 2026; • The IRS's aggressive litigation position on grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs) in the Elcan case; • Changes to the rules that apply to Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) under the new tax law; • QTIP marital trust case developments; • The Fields FLP case; and • Significant, Curious, or Downright Fascinating Fiduciary Cases.

Equity compensation offers great opportunity—and great complexity. This session explores the evolving landscape of executive pay, including stock options, restricted stock, and deferred compensation arrangements, and examines practical income and estate tax planning strategies to help executives (and their advisors) unlock value, manage timing, and preserve wealth.