Practical strategies shaping how local families protect wealth and honor their wishes
More about our topic:
Heather Conahan will guide members through estate planning strategies that go well beyond the basics, with a focus on issues unique to Hawaii families.
- How residency decisions can materially affect a family’s estate tax exposure, including Hawaii specific gift tax issues.
- How evolving laws around end of life choices are prompting families to reconsider their options.
Whether you already have an estate plan in place or are just beginning to think through one, this session will help you understand how these pieces fit together and what to raise with your own advisors. Members will leave with a broader view of the factors now shaping estate decisions for Hawaii based families.
Meet our speaker:
Heather K.L. Conahan, Esq. represents high net worth individuals and families, family owned businesses, family offices and charitable organizations. She has extensive experience in estate planning, including structuring solutions for transferring wealth to younger generations and succession planning for difficult family situations.
Ms. Conahan’s diverse practice includes counseling clients through major life events, such as establishing a family foundation, administering the estate of a deceased family member and establishing gift trusts for children or grandchildren.
Ms. Conahan’s tax-planning experience is focused on gift, estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes. She works with clients to design and implement estate plans, including wills, trusts and lifetime gifts. She also structures partnerships, limited liability companies and buy-sell agreements.
A significant portion of Ms. Conahan’s practice focuses on philanthropic matters, including the representation and advising of tax-exempt organizations and the representation of individuals with respect to charitable giving. She has helped clients to establish public charities, private foundations and private operating foundations, and she also counsels clients as to best practices in administering those organizations in light of the complicated tax rules surrounding their governance and permissible activities.
Ms. Conahan’s practice also includes probate and trust administration, as well as advisory services during litigation on contested tax, trust and other estate matters.
Ms. Conahan has practiced solely in the area of estate planning since 1999. She has presented lectures to various professional organizations. She is currently a member of the American Bar Association Section of Real Property, Trusts and Probate Law, and the Hawaii State Bar Association Sections of Real Property and Probate and Estate Planning, and has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America since 2006, and was featured on the cover of Honolulu magazine in their 2010 Best Lawyers edition.