Deciding on appropriate fiduciaries, such as a trustee under a trust, personal representative under a will, agent under a power of attorney, or health care agent, is a significant part of the estate planning process. For most clients, it makes sense to have family members, long-term advisors or friends, or professional fiduciaries such as trust companies or banks, serve in those fiduciary roles. However, when the need arises to have an MGD attorney serve as a fiduciary in a plan, our experienced team of attorneys, paralegals and support staff work together to provide professional fiduciary services.

Although MGD Law as a firm is not a trust company and the firm cannot be named as a corporate fiduciary, our individual attorneys can and are willing to be named as fiduciaries. It is MGD’s policy whenever possible to name two attorneys as co-trustees to provide continuity, responsiveness, and breadth of service without impacting trustee fees.

Five of our attorneys have previously worked in trust companies and banks in the trust department. Two attorneys served as in-house legal trust counsel to a major local trust company, three attorneys served as trust officers at large national trust companies, one of whom also served as in-house legal trust counsel, and one attorney served as wealth counsel at a large national trust company. We marshal their experience to create internal procedures for fiduciary administration that seek to implement the best practices they learned while working for such corporate fiduciaries.

When our attorneys serve as fiduciaries, we:

• Adhere to the governing documents and applicable state law, with close attention to remaining in compliance with the law and documents while also effectuating the intent of the party creating the trusts
• Manage distribution requests from beneficiaries in a methodical, transparent process, which responds to the current needs of the beneficiary while also considering the long-term implications of distributions on the income stream available and the rights of remainder beneficiaries
• Properly fund, administer, and distribute trusts
• Provide personalized service, outside of traditional business hours when necessary, as fiduciary and as legal counsel
• Handle any probate matters
• Handle tax filings and advice in-house, including the preparation of fiduciary income tax returns, gift, estate and GST tax returns, or partner with the trust creator’s professional accounting advisors
• Partner with professional investment advisors experienced in advising fiduciaries on investment of fiduciary assets.

You may only need to look to your MGD Law attorney for legal advice, estate planning, and estate and trust administration advice. If, however, you find that you need someone to fill the role of a fiduciary, your MGD Law attorney may be able to help.