Practice Areas
Estate Planning
- Wills, Trusts, Powers of Attorney
- All aspects of estate plans, encompassing the family, tax, estate, health care, and values-driven needs of our clients
- Estate administration and probate
- Navigation of the legal, financial, business, family - and emotional - issues that arise in handling a decedent's estate, including litigating contested estates and related issues
- Trust administration
- Advise both beneficiaries and trustees of their rights and obligations, and assistance in the proper management of the trust, whether an insurance trust, charitable trust, specialized business trust, a simple revocable living trust, or otherwise
- Special needs and disability
planning
- Addressing the needs of both the disabled and the elderly, including the use of special needs trusts, OBRA trusts, guardianships, powers of attorney, and other issues unique to these communities
- Guardianships
- Assistance in the initial creation of the guardianship, whether consensual or contested, and assistance in handling the ongoing responsibilities to the ward
- Charitable gifts and vehicles
- Set up and administration of charitable trusts, foundations, and similar entities; gift agreements; coordination of charitable, tax, family, and personal goals
- Pre-marital and pre-divorce
planning
- Negotiation and drafting of pre- and post-marital agreements, asset protection structures, creative use of trusts, providing counsel on risks associated with ownership structures
- LGBT family planning
- Planning for the LGBT community, including cohabitation agreements, wills and trusts, tax planning, civil unions, powers of attorney, etc.
- Insurance planning
- Insurance trusts, buy/sell funding, wealth replacement, private placement, key man, charitable gifts, funding solutions
- GRAT's, FLP's, LLC's IDGT's,
QPRT's, etc.
- All aspects of the alphabet soup of leveraged gifts and sales for business succession and transfer tax purposes
- Transference of values and value
- We believe that planning needs to account for the personal values and goals of the clients in order to be effective. Each client has unique values and concerns that our planning always endeavors to address.
- Integration with income tax
planning
- The firm began in the 1970's as a tax boutique, and we have never moved far from our roots, applying all of our tax planning skills and experience to the work performed by the firm.
- Coordination and team approach with other integral advisors
- Working comfortably with other professional advisors, whether as the quarterback or fullback, depending on what is required and appropriate in a given situation
Professionals
Industries Served
- Automotive Manufacturing & Dealerships
- Banking
- Broadcast Media
- Construction
- Energy & Utilities
- Entrepreneur/Start-Up Companies
- Financial Services
- Food/Beverage Services & Hospitality
- Healthcare
- Information Technology
- Leasing Companies
- Manufacturing & Distribution
- Mortgage Companies
- Not-For-Profit Organizations
- Pharmaceuticals
- Retail
- Service Companies
- Shipping & Logistics
- Specialty Finance
- Telecommunications
- Trading Companies
Publications
- Business Succession Planning for the Family-Owned Food Industry Business, June 2010
- Charitable Planning: Troubled Gifts in Troubled Times
- Estate and Gift Planning: Ten Reasons to Plan Now, October 2009
- Educating Younger Generations Through the Estate Plan
- Strategies for Private Foundations Planning
- Real Estate and Divorce: Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
- Lessons That Planners Can Learn From Celebrity Estate Battles
- Human Issues In Estate Planning For The Family Business Owner
- Knowledge Is Power: Understanding Your Donor's Personality and Motivations
- Gift Acceptance Agreements Avoid Headaches for Charitable Donors, Their Decendants and the Charities They Wish to Support
- Increased Gift Tax Exemption Only Temporary: Use it or Lose it?
- Estate, Gift, and GST Taxes: What Actually Happened
- The Art of Non-Cash Charitable Giving
- Life Is Short, Art Endures
- Life Insurance Litigation Post-Divorce: Easy to Avoid, Commonly Neglected
- Imagine the Possibilities: Opportunities for Non-Cash Donors
- Practical Guidance for Trustee Risk Management, Spring 2007
- E-Planning, November 2000
Presentations
News & Events
- Richard M. Horwood Receives Austin Fleming Distinguished Service Award, September 2011
- IMCA 2011 Advanced Wealth Management Conference, October 2011
- ACTEC Big Ten Regional Meeting, December 2011
- 46th Annual Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, January 2012
- Chicago Council on Planned Giving Presentation, January 2012
- Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education Presentation, February 2012
- 55th Annual IICLE Estate Planning Short Course, April 2012
- ICLEF Midwest Estate, Tax & Business Planning Institute, June 2012
- 41st Annual ALI-ABA Course of Study: Estate Planning in Depth, June 2012
- Horwood Marcus & Berk's Jeff Zaluda Delivers "Estate and Tax Planning When Getting In and Out of a Marriage" To Multiple Groups, May 2012
Cases
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