After years of studying family businesses, we believe it’s possible to identify one just by walking into the lobby of its headquarters. Unlike many multinationals, most of these firms don’t have luxurious offices. As the CEO at one global family-controlled commodity group told us, “The easiest money to earn is the money we haven’t spent.” While countless corporations use stock grants and options to […]
Without comment.
Asset protection for you In a nutshell, here’s what you need to know about trusts as they relate to asset protection: the less access you have to assets in a trust, the less likely your creditors will have access to those same assets to satisfy any claims they may have against you. Of course, the […]
Critical Skills You Should Learn That Pay Dividends Forever How to Get a Busy Person to Respond to Your Email Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and a Venture Capitalist To be honest, I just started reading this one today.
The bottom line today is that water continues to be an under appreciated and under-valued asset. But water prices will eventually start to rise more quickly – as a result of on-going population and demand growth, drought and increasing scarcity. More and more major urban areas are beginning to bump up against the challenges of true scarcity. And as water […]
Not too long ago, estate planning was all about the estate tax tail wagging a sometimes reluctant dog. That was unfortunate for a number of reasons, among them, the focus on estate taxes caused planners to look beyond all those who had no estate tax problem. Likewise, those without that estate tax problem walked around unaware that […]
What is decanting and how does it relate to trusts? The term “decanting” sounds mysterious, but in reality, decanting is simply a form of trust modification initiated by a trustee. The trustee accomplishes the modification by moving assets from one trust to a new trust with different terms. Estate planning attorneys draft trusts designed to […]
I cribbed this from Tyler Cowen’s blog, Marginal Revolution, who found in this study. To wit: We identify a number of background characteristics (e.g., undergraduate GPA) as well as screening measures (e.g., applicant performance on a mock teaching lesson) that strongly predict teacher effectiveness. Interestingly, we find that these measures are only weakly, if at […]
On becoming a trustee one enters a relationship which is governed by rules and bounded by limits. A trustee who thinks of himself or herself as controlling the relationship is far more likely to encounter serious trouble than a trustee who recognizes that the more practical characterization is that of a faithful partner with […]
I recently became affiliated with DocuBank, a firm that allows my clients and me to store my and my clients to safely and securely store our estate planning documents, including our living wills, health care directives, and HIPAA authorizations. In turn, your and my doctor or the hospital in whose beds we might by lying […]