Holland & Hart has one of the largest and most extensive private client practices in the Mountain West. Our Private Client Group includes approximately 22 attorneys and six non-attorney professionals covering our 15 offices throughout the region. We provide comprehensive legal representation on estate planning and wealth management matters to families and individuals, estates and trusts, family offices, closely-held businesses and foundations in the United States and internationally.

We offer our clients a full spectrum of estate and wealth planning services. Whether assisting our clients in designing their wealth transfer plan, minimizing the impact of taxes, or fulfilling their fiduciary obligations, our core strength is in providing our clients with innovative planning strategies and practical and well-integrated solutions.

Who Are Our Clients
Our practice is focused on representing high net worth individuals and families, including some of the wealthiest families in the United States. Our clients include individuals and families, privately owned companies, foundations, and individual and corporate fiduciaries.

How We Work With Our Clients
We are committed to our clients' evolving needs and strive to be lifelong advisors for our clients. With our range of experience, we often represent our private client families through multiple generations.
Our approach is highly personal and strategic. While working one-on-one with our clients, we gain an in-depth knowledge of their personal planning goals and tailor our recommendations to effectively meet those goals. This partnership allows us to design proactive and flexible planning solutions to satisfy our clients' needs.

We work closely with current advisors to our clients, including outside counsel, accountants, investment professionals, family office principals, and other key members of our clients' teams.

Should our clients require additional resources, we offer introductions to the top talent in non-legal services, such as investment professionals and financial planners, investment bankers, accounting professionals, valuation consultants, and insurance professionals. We promote no financial or other products and, therefore, consider the full range of appropriate planning options and advisors.

Leading Attorneys
Our attorneys are nationally-recognized by Best Lawyers in America and Worth magazine as leaders in their field. They serve as peer-selected fellows in key industry organizations, including the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and the American College of Tax Counsel. Attorneys in our Private Client Group are frequent speakers on a broad range of estate and wealth transfer planning topics and are highly committed leaders in numerous charitable, community, and professional organizations.

Access to Related Legal Services
Our full service practice allows us to offer each private client comprehensive and well-coordinated legal services. While our Private Client attorneys often serve as the client's primary legal advisor on wealth planning issues, our clients frequently require assistance in other legal matters. Using our innovative, firm-wide technology, we represent clients both cross-office and cross-practice in a variety of legal matters.

With our firm-wide resources, we deliver experience in a wide range of areas beneficial to our private clients, including:

Aircraft acquisition

Alternative Dispute Resolution

Conservation easements

Employee benefits and executive compensation

Family business matters

Immigration

International matters, including worldwide transfer, inheritance and income tax issues for individuals and businesses

Litigation

Mergers and acquisitions

Real estate transactions

State tax domicile

Private Client Group Services

Our Private Client attorneys provide comprehensive legal counsel in the full range of estate and wealth planning services, including:

Wealth Transfer Planning and Estate Planning

Gift, estate, and generation-skipping transfer tax planning

Irrevocable trusts, including intentionally defective irrevocable trusts (IDITs), grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs), qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTs), and irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs)

Dynasty trusts

Values-based trusts

Community and marital property planning

Wills and revocable trusts

Powers of attorney and living wills

Asset titling and customized beneficiary designations

Wealth Management

Legal and tax services

Legal aspects of investment services

Full integration of Wealth Transfer Plans with other advisors

Information flow across multiple family entities

Trust and Estate Administration

Complex estate administration

Trust management

Family dispute resolution

Representation of individual and corporate fiduciaries

Fiduciary duty issues and avoidance of conflicts of interest

Trust construction and reformation

Post-mortem tax planning strategies

Estate tax return preparation

Charitable Planning and Tax Exempt Organizations

Charitable gifting strategies

Charitable trusts, including charitable lead annuity and unitrusts (CLATs and CLUTs) and charitable remainder annuity and unitrusts (CRATs and CRUTs)

Conservation easements

Family foundations

Tax exempt status

Tax compliance, governance, risk management and other legal issues

Business Succession Planning

Family limited partnerships and limited liability companies

Key employee ownership and incentive compensation planning

Buy-sell agreements

Business succession trusts

Marital Agreements

Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements and planning

Cohabitation agreements and planning

Income Tax

Choice of entity/pass-through taxation

State income tax situs and minimization issues

Fiduciary income tax

Fiduciary Solutions

Tax controversy matters

Challenges regarding fiduciary duties, distribution standards, and related disputes

Structure negotiated solutions to trust and estate controversies

Will and trust contests, construction and reformation suits, and other fiduciary litigation