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When former First Lady Nancy Reagan passed away in March 2016, millions of Americans mourned the loss. While the events honoring Mrs. Reagan unfurled seamlessly, a dedicated team was hard at work behind the scenes to ensure the funeral was being conducted to Mrs. Reagan’s expressed desires. The preparations and demands of the funeral may seem extreme, but many of Mrs. Reagan's concerns apply to other families of wealth and should be addressed.

In both complex commercial and family disputes, the caucus-style mediation has been the predominantly employed method over the joint mediation session. But as society and business systems continue to evolve, the mediation process must also evolve to where mediators should more aggressively explore the benefits of joint sessions with the parties at the outset of mediation. In a new generation of transparency-driven parties—faced with issues of growing complexity and personal implications—it calls for a dispute resolution process that is less obscure and manipulative.

What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School was a New York Times best-seller that highlighted ingredients to success absent from America’s business schools. In today’s negative interest rate environment, there may be an even more important consideration for business school grads—to consciously forget much of what was taught in business school. This paper identifies several investing concepts broadly taught across the nation and preached on Wall Street.

Today’s PFTCs bear little resemblance to ‘private trust companies’ of the 1990s, the gestation era for the PFTC. The modern US PFTC also differs markedly from a third form of ‘private trust company’: its ‘offshore’ single family private trust company (OFTC). Limited federal taxation of foreign trusts and privacy protections as good as or better than those found in traditional offshore jurisdictions have led some commentators to call the United States the ‘new offshore’ jurisdiction for trusts.

Most family offices that serve U.S. families are well aware that special planning considerations can arise when a U.S. citizen family member marries a noncitizen. Should the client’s estate plan be revised to incorporate a qualified domestic trust (QDOT) to ensure that assets passing to the surviving noncitizen spouse qualify for federal estate tax marital deduction?

In early April 2016 files leaked from a large Panama-based law firm (known as the ‘Panama Papers’) brought to the attention of many the ways in which offshore companies and structures can be used to obscure the identity of beneficial owners, some of whom have used such entities to avoid paying tax in their country of tax residence.

Even though a trust may be established under the laws of a US state and have a US trust company serving as trustee (hereinafter a ‘US-based trust’), this does not mean that it is a US domestic trust for income tax purposes. If non-US persons make substantial decisions for the trust, the US-based trust will be classified as a foreign trust under US tax law. Regardless of whether the US-based trust is foreign or domestic, if it has accounts with financial institutions, it must provide certification of its status for Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) purposes.

For eight years the Federal Reserve Bank has held interest rates abnormally low. The Fed's dual mandate of moderating unemployment and inflation seems to have morphed instead into keeping stock prices high. That has helped Wall Street tremendously but has punished the average person saving for retirement. What we need now is economic growth, and fiscal and monetary changes from Washington, D.C. to reverse the low return environment.

In this quarterly investment insights report—“The Economic Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”—is an examination of the uncertainty in the financial markets. It identifies and delves into key themes for investing in the current environment. The main concerns for investors revolve around the rising U.S. dollar, monetary policy changes and the probable introduction of fiscal stimulus, and the path of earnings. Deciphering these themes will be important to investors, and only time will tell how they play out.

Some 90 percent of adults over 65 prefer to “age in place,” and even the need for health or mobility assistance doesn’t change their desire to stay in their own homes. It raises issues not just for Baby Boomers, but for those who are responsible for their transitioning through the stages of aging. The “aging in place” trend has also brought with it significantly more options and risks on the continuum of care. Welcome to senior citizenship, 21st Century style.