Family offices operate at the intersection of private capital, business ownership, and multigenerational stewardship. We advise high- and ultra-high-net-worth individuals, families, and family offices on the sophisticated legal needs that come with managing, protecting, and transferring private wealth. Our multidisciplinary team brings together experience in estate and tax planning, wealth transfer, business succession, governance, investments, employment, regulatory matters, and risk management.
As families establish or evolve their family offices, we help coordinate these interconnected needs across generations, businesses, assets, and jurisdictions.
We work with family offices as privately owned enterprises, recognizing that their legal needs evolve alongside the family, its assets, and underlying businesses. Drawing on long-standing experience advising private companies and their owners, as well as high-net-worth individuals and families, we support clients as they establish, operate, and refine family office structures over time. Our approach reflects the realities of multigenerational ownership, wealth transfer, shifting responsibilities, and the need for coordinated legal guidance across disciplines.
What Do We Do?
- Advise on the formation of family offices and related governance structures, including ownership models and operating frameworks.
- Counsel families on governance, decision-making, fiduciary considerations, and succession as family members assume management and oversight roles.
- Assist with sophisticated estate planning, tax planning, trusts, business succession, and multigenerational wealth transfer strategies, working alongside family offices and other advisors where appropriate.
- Provide legal guidance related to family office operations, including employment matters, compensation structures, and regulatory considerations.
- Support investment-related activities, including real estate transactions, private equity investments, and fund formation, depending on the family office’s mandate.
- Advise on dispute avoidance strategies and represent family offices in related disputes or litigation when issues arise.
Who Do We Help?
- Single-family offices
- Multi-family offices
- High-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals and multigenerational families
- Owners of closely held and family-owned businesses
- Private trust companies
How Can We Help?
Families and family offices turn to us when establishing or restructuring a family office, developing estate and wealth transfer plans, implementing governance or succession frameworks, evaluating investments, addressing tax or regulatory issues, managing complex family-owned assets, or resolving disputes among stakeholders.
Because these issues rarely exist in isolation, we bring together lawyers across disciplines to provide coordinated advice that reflects both the family’s immediate needs and its long-term objectives.
For more than a century, advising private companies and their owners has been a core part of our practice. Today, our Family Office team brings that experience together with nationally recognized private wealth capabilities to advise family offices, high-net-worth individuals, multigenerational families, and closely held businesses on their interconnected legal needs.
We have represented established private and family-owned businesses through multiple generations, counseling families as they execute long-term visions, transfer wealth and ownership, address governance challenges, and manage transitions in leadership.
Representative areas of engagement include:
- Advising families on the creation and ongoing governance of family offices
- Advising on estate and tax planning, wealth transfer, and succession matters
- Supporting multigenerational succession planning and leadership transitions
- Counseling family offices on investments, operations, and regulatory considerations
- Assisting with dispute avoidance and resolution involving family-owned enterprises
