Williams Coulson’s Business Succession Planning Group counsels owners of closely-held businesses on tax-efficient strategies for transferring ownership and management of their businesses to children or others.

Members of the Business Succession Group are accustomed to working with firm attorneys and professionals in other disciplines–both within our firm and with lawyers at other firms–to provide a team approach for the business succession needs of our closely-held and family business owner clients. We help our clients plan for continuity of management and ownership, while also ensuring protection for those family members who are not active in the business.

Our group practitioners counsel individual clients and their businesses in connection with entity buy-sell agreements and shareholder cross-purchase agreements and establishing irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs) to fund such agreements.

In connection with the transfer of business interests to younger-generation family members, we are able to counsel clients on a variety of strategies which may include the gifting of business interests either outright or in trust, and the use of a variety of transactional techniques for the transfer of such business interests.

Our attorneys provide clients with innovative strategies for the accumulation, management and transfer of wealth. Specialty areas within the practice include: charitable planning, contingency planning, trust and estate planning, wealth management and asset protection, and wealth transfers.