High Net Worth Estate Planning

Beyond Basic Estate Planning

Most estate planning firms are built around a standard will-trust-power-of-attorney template. Fine work for most people, but families with significant wealth face planning decisions that require more depth, more coordination, and more experience.

We work with high net worth families who want a primary attorney who knows them, coordinates with their existing advisor team, and delivers sophisticated planning without the price tag or impersonal feel of a national firm.

What Changes When Wealth Is Significant

Pennsylvania Inheritance Tax Becomes a Real Number

Pennsylvania is one of only a handful of states that still imposes an inheritance tax on transfers at death. The rates are 0% to a surviving spouse, 4.5% to lineal descendants (children, grandchildren), 12% to siblings, and 15% to others. On a $2 million estate passing to children, that is $90,000. On a $5 million estate, it is $225,000. Planning strategies including lifetime gifting, trust structures, and entity ownership can reduce this exposure meaningfully.

Your Plan Needs to Do More Than Distribute Assets

A simple will divides your property and names an executor. A high net worth family's plan also coordinates beneficiary designations across multiple retirement accounts, handles property across state lines, accounts for blended family dynamics, protects an inheritance from a child's divorce or creditors, and anticipates the incapacity planning you will almost certainly need before death.

Beneficiary Designations Matter More Than Your Will

At this level, retirement accounts often represent 40% to 60% of the estate. Those accounts pass by beneficiary designation, not by will. Getting the designations wrong — naming the wrong person, naming a minor child directly, naming an estate as backup — can trigger unnecessary tax, probate, and family conflict. We review every designation as part of the planning process.

Incapacity Planning Is Not Optional

Most families will experience a period of cognitive decline or incapacity before death. Pennsylvania's durable power of attorney statute gives you meaningful control over who manages your finances and under what circumstances — but only if the document is drafted carefully. A generic form will not include the Medicaid planning powers, gifting authority, or trust funding powers a family at this level actually needs.

The Current Planning Environment

The One Big Beautiful Bill, enacted in July 2025, made the federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax exemption permanent at $15 million per person — $30 million for a married couple. For the first time in decades, high net worth families can plan with confidence that the exemption will not sunset or be clawed back in the next administration.

This changes the math significantly. Dynasty trusts become more valuable because the assets moved into them compound outside the estate for generations. Gifting strategies shift from tax urgency to family planning. Charitable planning becomes a tool for values transmission rather than a tax workaround.

How We Help

Dynasty Trusts and Multi-Generational Planning

A properly structured dynasty trust holds wealth for the benefit of children, grandchildren, and beyond, minimizing estate and GST tax at each generation and protecting assets from creditors, divorce, and mismanagement. We design dynasty trust structures that fit your family's values and distribution philosophy, not a cookie-cutter template.

Business Succession Planning

When a significant portion of your wealth is tied up in a closely held business, the estate plan and the succession plan cannot be separated. We coordinate buy-sell agreements, life insurance funding, management transition timelines, and grantor trust structures so that the business survives the transition and the family is treated fairly, whether they are active in the business or not.

Gifting Strategies

With the $15M exemption now permanent, lifetime gifting is no longer primarily a tax race against sunset. But it remains valuable for families who want to see their children and grandchildren benefit during their lifetime, move appreciating assets out of the estate early, or use irrevocable grantor trust structures to supercharge tax-efficient wealth transfer.

Asset Protection

High net worth families face disproportionate litigation risk. We design protective structures — including asset protection trusts, LLC holding structures, and spendthrift provisions for beneficiaries — to shield principal from future claims without triggering fraudulent transfer issues.

Real Estate and Closely Held Entities

Vacation homes, investment properties, commercial real estate, and family partnerships each have their own planning quirks. We handle the coordination between the estate plan and the entity documents so that ownership transitions smoothly at death or disability.

Charitable Planning

For families with a philanthropic bent, charitable remainder trusts, charitable lead trusts, private foundations, and donor-advised funds can achieve both family and charitable goals. We help you choose the right vehicle for the right purpose.

Coordination With Your Advisor Team

You likely already have a wealth advisor, a CPA, and perhaps an insurance professional. We work alongside them, not around them. Our job is to make sure the legal structures support what the financial and tax teams are doing, and that everyone is operating from the same plan.

Common Situations We Handle

• The retired couple with substantial assets. Primary residence, vacation home, retirement accounts, brokerage accounts, and adult children with varying financial circumstances. A coordinated plan that handles multi-state property, protects the surviving spouse, and treats the children fairly.
• The business owner. A closely held company, a buy-sell agreement, key employees, and a family plan that needs to coordinate with the business exit.
• The professional with a practice. Physician, dentist, accountant, or attorney with a practice, professional building, retirement plans, and significant lifetime earning power.
• The blended family. A second marriage where both spouses brought meaningful wealth, children from prior relationships, and the tension between providing for the current spouse and preserving inheritance for children.
• Multi-generational wealth. Families looking for a primary attorney rather than a trust department to oversee structures that span generations.
• The family with sentimental property. A cabin, a farm, or real estate the family wants to keep together through the next generation, with clear rules about use, maintenance, and what happens if someone wants out.

Free Download: HNW Estate Planning Guide

Our comprehensive guide covers the key strategies, Pennsylvania-specific considerations, and planning decisions that families with significant wealth need to understand — dynasty trusts, gifting, asset protection, business succession, and more.

What You Should Know Going In

Our fees are transparent — we discuss cost openly during your initial conversation so you can make an informed decision before any work begins. We do not bill hourly for estate planning engagements; most of our work is handled on a flat-fee basis so you know exactly what you are paying for.

Schedule a Conversation

Call (724) 733-3500 or schedule online. Initial conversations are confidential and conducted by a partner personally.