The Law Offices of Ido Stern » Family Practice

Trust Administration & Trust Litigation

Trust Administration

The duties of a trustee are numerous and complex. For the most part, the days of trust administration without nearly constant legal advice are gone. In recognition of the important role that trustees play and the difficult questions they must grapple with, our law firm, offers legal counsel to trustees or to trust beneficiaries. Contact us for legal advice and representation relating to all types of trusts:

• Living trust and testamentary trust administration
• Irrevocable and revocable trust administration
• Special needs trust administration
• Charitable trust administration

In the most general sense, the legal counsel we provide in trust administration situations often relates to the definition and execution of "fiduciary duty." The trustee plays a fiduciary role with regard to the trust and the beneficiaries. This means that the trustee must handle the funds for the benefit of the beneficiaries with the same care as if the trustee was handling his or her own funds.

Some common trust administration questions relating to the execution of fiduciary duty are:

• What constitutes proper management?
• What constitutes responsible investment?
• How does one resolve a conflict between two generations of beneficiaries - when the older generation wants the income to be high, even at the expense of growth, but the second generation of beneficiaries wants the income low and the growth high?
• What is the definition of self-dealing and how may it be legally avoided?
• What types of actions must a fiduciary take to adequately investigate an independent investment adviser?

In addition to providing counsel on these complex questions relating to trust administration, our firm also handles the mundane chores associated with trust administration: accounting, record-keeping, tax filings, and payouts.

Trust Litigation

Individuals with substantial assets are turning more frequently to the use of a trust instrument in addition to or in place of a will. A trust is a document where a person or entity manages the property of another.

Trust instruments can be created while the grantor is alive (an irrevocable or living trust) or substitute for a will (a revocable trust) to provide for the distribution of assets upon death. Like a will, the validity of a trust may be contested. Additionally, the trustee appointed to oversee the trust is sometimes sued for improper accounting and trust mismanagement. Our significant experience in this area includes litigating on behalf of large trust beneficiaries as well as defending trust fiduciaries.

We represent clients in a variety of trust actions:

• Trust contests
• Beneficiary claims
• The validity of trusts (fraud, duress, undue influence, coercion, lack of capacity)
• Trust reformation
• Representation of trustees
• Accounting of trust finances
• Breach of a fiduciary duty and
• Trust misappropriation/mismanagement

Our law firm represents individuals in a diverse range of actions related to trust litigation. We also represent individuals in complex trust-related disputes, including matters involving accounting, and claims of trust mismanagement, and breach of fiduciary duty.