Overview
Your Legacy, Thoughtfully Planned
Wealth planning is about peace of mind. Michael Best helps clients plan for the future with thoughtful, personalized wealth planning that protects a lifetime of effort.
Our attorneys are trusted legal advisors with extensive knowledge in tax, estate, and business planning. We help clients utilize financial and legal tools to achieve personal, family, business, and charitable goals.
Whether planning for retirement, preparing to transfer a business, or organizing a family’s long-term legacy, our team helps preserve capital, minimize tax burdens, and promote alignment across generations.
Best Law Firms
Michael Best’s Trusts & Estates practice is ranked by Best Lawyers® ‘Best Law Firms': Tier 3 nationally, Tier 1 in Milwaukee, and Tier 2 in both Green Bay and Madison.
Our Approach: Clear Guidance for Complex Decisions
Our team includes attorneys with advanced tax credentials, CPAs, and ACTEC Fellow. ACTEC is an organization of leading trust and estate lawyers and law professors committed to maintaining excellence in the trust and estate legal field.
Drawing from decades of experience with a diverse client base, we have a wide range of perspectives to help tailor solutions to meet your goals. We often collaborate with accountants, investment managers, and other advisors to provide integrated planning across income and estate tax, business succession, asset protection, risk management, and retirement.
Our plans are designed to be flexible and responsive to evolving family dynamics, economic conditions, and ever-changing tax laws, ensuring that each client’s values and priorities are reflected in every decision.
Contact our Wealth Planning Coordinator with questions on new or existing estate plans and to be directed to an attorney for assistance.
Focus Areas
Our attorneys help clients prepare and manage plans for the protection and distribution of their assets. Our comprehensive services in this area include establishing wills, trusts, managing tax considerations, and navigating family and corporate structures.
We assist family-owned businesses with planning for the future. Clients turn to our attorneys for their insight on creating and managing business trusts, and for counsel on transitions including next-generation owners, corporate entities, and shareholder and buy/ sell agreements.
Our team of legal and business advisors can support you from initial vision through setup and ongoing operations. We advise on legal and tax structures, succession planning, philanthropic and investment strategies, regulatory compliance, privacy and data protection, and more.
We provide guidance to clients who wish to incorporate charitable giving in their future plans. Our team is experienced in charitable remainder and lead trusts, family foundations, and donor-advised funds. We also assist with navigating the income tax implications of charitable giving.
We are skilled in handling contested matters and have a successful track record of achieving satisfactory resolutions, often without the need for trial. We represent clients in contested matters such as tax audits and litigation (at both the state and federal level), will contests, trust litigation, and estate and trust accountings.
Our attorneys understand that insurance is a critical component of financial planning. We provide analysis of life, disability, and long-term care insurance, to ensure the best options are utilized. We also advise on irrevocable life insurance trusts, split-dollar plans, and beneficiary designations.
Marital property planning can present unique and sometimes complicated challenges. Michael Best’s team is familiar with state marital property laws, and our expertise includes pre- and post-marital agreements, titling of assets, and other planning considerations.
We know the importance of properly planning for the care of elderly and/or disabled loved ones and assist clients in assessing what resources are right for their needs. Our attorneys help with developing financial and health care powers of attorney, planning for long-term care, establishing special needs trusts.
A comfortable retirement is a goal shared by many, and our team is knowledgeable in the planning structures and tools to support that objective. We provide counsel on qualified and nonqualified retirement plans, stock option issuance and exercise, retirement distribution planning, and deferred compensation, helping our clients plan for exiting the workforce confidently.
