Millennials and ultra-high net worth individuals are increasingly seeking to connect with and positively change their communities through investing, and the way capital is currently deployed can no longer support this need. Impact investing, a subset of social finance, represents a paradigm shift, allocating capital for measurable social and enviro...
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It is an unfortunate fact of life that, as we age, our cognitive powers often decline. To assist people as they reach this stage in their lives, states provide a mechanism by which a person’s friends and family may petition a court to declare him or her incapacitated, and for the court to appoint a guardian to manage his or her affairs. While...
Selling a business can be a long and complicated process. One of the more strenuous and time-consuming aspects of selling a business is the due diligence process. Assisting with a buyer’s due diligence can take a significant amount of resources of your family office or employees of the business. Accordingly, if you plan on selling a business ...
Data breaches have become an accepted fact of modern business. According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, twenty-nine businesses reported data breaches in August of 2016 alone. No industry was safe. For many organizations, the question now is not “if,” but “when.” This year appears to be on pace to surpass the number of ...
Although surveys vary, it is estimated that one-third of Americans own a gun. Therefore, the probability that a professional fiduciary (whether a trustee or personal representative) will be responsible for handling the sale or transfer of a firearm is relatively high. A fiduciary selling a gun collection faces unique challenges of both valuation an...
When done well, a trustee’s service can have a profoundly positive impact on a family; when done poorly, a trustee’s service can create or exacerbate fissures within a family, dissipate family wealth, create personal liability for the trustee, and create a public spectacle that sullies the family’s good name and reputation. For key employees in fam...
Your first home, establishing your career, marriage, a new baby, a teen’s first car, a student going to college, retirement—many of life’s major events can affect not only your life insurance and estate plans but also your property and liability insurance. While insurance may not be top of mind during these memorable moments and k...
Although public companies are most often the targets of shareholder claims and class-action suits, not-for-profit and private entities are not immune from litigation. As a director, you could be named personally in claims of fraud or financial mismanagement from which the entity’s indemnification provisions and business structure cannot alway...
For many individuals and families of wealth, there comes a time when they decide to engage in philanthropy in a larger, perhaps more strategic manner. This often occurs as their relationship with wealth matures, and they realize they have an opportunity (or perhaps feel an obligation) to go beyond writing checks to worthy organizations and move tow...
The rules of the game in estate planning have changed. No longer can planners be so focused on the estate tax liability. They now must be equally focused on income taxes. In the past, taxpayers were willing to give up a step-up in basis at death in order to reduce or eliminate estate taxes. That is often no longer a good trade. With a smaller diffe...
Now that school is back in session, it’s important for students to take stock of what they know as they embrace a new year of learning. It’s also a good time for investors to assess the events of the summer and make sure they are well-positioned for the future. In Jeff Mortimer’s latest Investment Update he reviews the events of t...
Families pursue impact investing for a variety of reasons, including as a way to engage younger family members in the broader philanthropic and investment activities of a family to foster continuity in the stewardship of assets across generations. Before incorporating impact investments into their portfolios, families should define the overall cont...
Performance results over the past ten years make a strong case for higher allocations to private investments. Investors concerned with earning a return on their portfolios that will support their spending needs should look closely at the results and investment policies of this group and consider crossing the “15% frontier” in their own ...
Cloud-based applications, also known as Software as a Service (SaaS), offer significant benefits. They are highly affordable, require minimal IT involvement, have no hardware requirements, and offer great flexibility. Yet there can be significant risks to a firm if it does not review vendors carefully. Unfortunately, security controls vary signific...
Commercial agreements come in a variety of types, but most have certain common provisions that should be carefully reviewed in the context of the underlying transaction covered by the agreement. When entering or reviewing one of these agreements, it is important to address the five key provisions that sometimes go unnoticed or are not given proper ...