Offit Kurman Adds Five-Lawyer Tax and Estate Boutique

Maryland-based Offit Kurman plans to add five-lawyer tax and estate planning boutique Fineburg Law Associates to its Philadelphia office, effective October 1.

Civil Practice: Woodchips Are Real Estate, So School Could Be Liable for Injury

A school district is facing potential liability for injuries a sixth-grade girl suffered on a school playground because a Monroe County judge ruled the layer of woodchips covering the playground qualified as the school's real estate.

Wealth Matters: How to Avoid an Estate Battle After You Die

But two years after the death of that woman, Huguette Clark, the last surviving daughter of William A. Clark, who made a fortune in copper mining, her $300 million estate is still being disputed. And the battle has plenty of lessons for people with far less money.

At issue in Mrs. Clark’s case are two wills signed six years before her death in 2011. The first would have left most of her fortune to 21 distant relatives she did not know, may never have met and did not list by name. The second, signed a month later, increased the bequest for her caregiver, gave money to a goddaughter and established a foundation at her mansion in Santa Barbara, Calif., for her art and doll collection. The distant relatives got nothing.

The dueling wills have become part of a highly publicized court case involving Washington’s Corcoran Gallery of Art and one of Claude Monet’s Water Lilies paintings, valued at the time of Mrs. Clark’s death at $25 million. The case has also ensnared New York’s Beth Israel Medical Center, accused of pressing Mrs. Clark to make a big donation.

Documents full of intrigue have been filed in court — including a new cache just this week challenging the Corcoran Gallery’s claims — in preparation for a trial in September. The relatives could receive millions of dollars each if one or both wills is overturned or a settlement is reached. The caregiver and charities Mrs. Clark gave her money to could get nothing. Then there are the millions of dollars in legal fees to law firms and the tens of millions of dollars in estate taxes to the federal government, which will rise substantially if more money goes to the heirs than to charitable organizations.

“What we’re trying to do is make sure this case is being litigated with the right parties and not people who are trying to align themselves for ulterior motives,” said a lawyer, John D. Dadakis, in explaining the latest filings against the Corcoran. Mr. Dadakis is a partner at the law firm Holland & Knight, which is representing Mrs. Clark’s estate

It’s a big mess. But the dispute over Mrs. Clark’s two wills has implications for people with far less money. When is a person too old to decide her affairs? How can you insure that your money goes to the people and institutions you want to get it? Is there a way to prevent expensive lawsuits?

“People are living longer and they’re having periods of diminished capacity that are more and more common,” said Alan F. Rothschild Jr., a lawyer in Columbus, Ga., and a former chairman of the American Bar Association’s real property, trust and estate law section. “The litigation in this area is increasing because people are willing to sue more, even family members and the banks.”

Here is a look at some common issues raised in Mrs. Clark’s case.

DISPUTING HEIRS Challenges to wills by distant relatives are so common that lawyers have a nickname for those people: “laughing heirs” — as in they will be laughing all the way to the bank if their challenge succeeds.

“People tend to come out of the woodwork and believe that they’re closer than they are and should have some claim,” said a litigator who specializes in contested wills who spoke anonymously because other lawyers at her firm worked with some of the heirs in the Clark case. “The most often-challenged wills are those for people who don’t have direct, obvious heirs.”

A more common situation arises when a parent treats children differently. The trickier cases are those in which family members have had a falling out.

Paige K. Ben-Yaacov, a partner in the private client section of Baker Botts, said she counseled clients not to divide their estates unevenly. “They’re just making matters worse and opening the estate up to litigation.”

In Mrs. Clark’s case, she did not name her relatives in her wills because she did not know most of them. For people who intentionally leave out children, Ms. Ben-Yaacov advises creating a trail of estate documents over many years laying out their wishes in detail.

Mrs. Clark’s second will was in effect for six years before she died — normally long enough to establish that this was her intent, had she not been 98 when she signed it.

Offit Kurman Expands Real Estate Practice

Jim Ettelson has joined the Philadelphia office of Baltimore-based Offit Kurman, where he will head up the firm's real estate practice.

Novelties: Estate Planning Is Important for Your Online Assets, Too

But you may want to provide for your virtual goods, too. Who gets the photographs and the e-mail stored online, the contents of a Facebook account, or that digital sword won in an online game?

These things can be important to the people you leave behind.

“Digital assets have value, sometimes sentimental, and sometimes commercial, just like a boxful of jewelry,” said John M. Riccione, a lawyer at Aronberg Goldgehn Davis & Garmisa in Chicago. “There can be painful legal and emotional issues for relatives unless you decide how to handle your electronic possessions in your estate planning.”

Many services and programs have sprung up to help people prepare for what happens after their last login.

Google has a program called Inactive Account Manager, introduced in April, that lets those who use Google services decide exactly how they want to deal with the data they’ve stored online with the company — from Gmail and Picasa photo albums to publicly shared data like YouTube videos and blogs.

The process is straightforward. First go to google.com/settings/account. Then look for “account management” and then “control what happens to your account when you stop using Google.” Click on “Learn more and go to setup.” Then let Google know the people you want to be notified when the company deactivates the account; you’re allowed up to 10 names. You choose when you want Google to end your account — for example, after three, six or nine months of electronic silence (or even 12 months, if you’ve decided to take a yearlong trip down the Amazon).

Google has ways to make sure that your electronic pulse has really gone silent; it checks for traces of your online self, for example, by way of Android check-ins, Gmail activity and Web history. Then, a month before it pulls the plug, Google alerts you by text and e-mail, just in case you’re still there. If silence has indeed fallen, Google notifies your beneficiaries and provides links they can follow to download the photographs, videos, documents or other data left to them, said Nadja Blagojevic, a Google manager.

And if you just want to say goodbye to everything, with no bequests, you can instruct Google to delete all of the information in your account.

Naomi R. Cahn, a professor of law at George Washington University Law School in Washington, says Google’s new program is a step forward in digital estate planning. “People should carefully consider the fate of their online presences once they are no longer able to manage them,” she said.

Other companies may also be of help in planning your digital legacy. Many services offer online safe deposit boxes, for example, where you can stow away the passwords to e-mail accounts and other data. Accounts like this at SecureSafe, are free for up to 50 passwords, 10 megabytes of storage and one beneficiary, said Andreas Jacob, a co-founder. Accounts can be accessed from a browser, or from free iPhone, iPad and Android apps. The company also offers premium services for those who need a larger storage space, more passwords or more beneficiaries.

There is always your sock drawer or another physical repository to store a list of your user ID’s, should you be deterred from online lockboxes by fear of cyberattacks or the risk that computer servers that may not be there in a few decades, said Alexandra Gerson, a lawyer at Helsell Fetterman in Seattle.

“Make a private list of all your user names and passwords for all the accounts in which you have a digital presence, and make sure you update the list if you change login information” Ms. Gerson said. “Don’t put user names and passwords in your will, though, as it becomes a public record when you die.”

Make sure that your executor or personal representative understands the importance of preserving these digital assets, and knows how to find them, said Laura Hoexter, a lawyer at Helsell who also works on inheritance issues. “Preferably the person should be tech-savvy,” she said, and know about your online game accounts, your PayPal account, your online presence on photo storage sites, social media accounts and blogs, and even your online shopping accounts where your credit card information is stored so that the information can be deleted.

AFTER you die, an executor or agent can contact Facebook and other social media sites, establish his or her authority to administer the estate, and request the contents of the account.

“Most accounts won’t give you the user name and password, but they will release the contents of the account such as photographs and posts” to an executor, Ms. Hoexter said.

Transfer at death can depend on the company’s terms of service, copyright law and whether the file is encrypted in ways that limit the ability to freely copy and transfer it. Rights to digital contents bought on Google Play, for example, end upon the person’s death. “There is currently no way of assigning them to others after the user’s death,” Ms. Blagojevic said.

Encryption is a common constraint, but there are exceptions. Apple’s iTunes store, for example, has long removed its anti-copying restrictions on the songs sold there, and Ms. Gerson advises people to take advantage of this in their digital planning. “Get your music backed up on your computer,” she said.

Up to five computers can be authorized to play purchases made with one iTunes account, and a company support representative advises that users make sure that their heirs have access. At Kindle, too, family members with user ID information for the account can access the digital content.

Professor Cahn in Washington says the time to prepare for the digital hereafter is now, particularly if serious illness is a factor. “If someone is terminally ill,” she said, “in addition to getting emotional and financial issues in order, you need to get your Internet house in order.”

E-mail: novelties@nytimes.com.

N.Y. Real Estate Boutique Hires Cooley Partners

Four real estate attorneys have jumped from Cooley to 60-lawyer Duval & Stachenfeld in New York, including a former chairman of its real estate practice and a senior partner.

Joining Duval & Stachenfeld are Thomas O'Connor, who served as the head of Cooley's real estate group for six years, and Alan Cohen, a former senior partner in that group. Also moving are Maureen Hannon, who is of counsel, and Michael Estreicher, a senior associate.

O'Connor's departure follows the appointment in January of Antonio Calabrese as chairman of Cooley's real estate practice. Calabrese works from Cooley's Reston, Va., office. O'Connor served as head of the practice until Calabrese's appointment.

Duval & Stachenfeld focuses on real estate law and also serves corporate, litigation and bankruptcy clients. About 50 of the firm's lawyers work on real estate matters. Founding partner Patrick Duval, a transactions lawyer, is a former Latham & Watkins partner, and founder Bruce Stachenfeld, a Harvard Law School graduate, was a partner at Shapiro, Shapses, Block & Stachenfeld. Duval & Stachenfeld was formed in 1997.

Cohen said that his new firm offers a better platform for real estate work, which is not a key focus for Cooley, he said.

"We weren't getting the green light to grow the practice the way we wanted to," he said.

Cooley declined to comment on the attorneys' departures.

O'Connor did not immediately respond to a request for comment. His real estate finance clients have included Starwood Property Trust Inc., Safra Bank of New York, Oritani Bank and Arbor Realty Trust. He previously worked at Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

Cohen, a former partner at Morrison Cohen, has represented Centurian Realty LLC, Squaw Valley Ski Corp. and Caribbean Property Group.

N.Y. Real Estate Boutique Hires Cooley Partners

Four real estate attorneys have jumped from Cooley to 60-lawyer Duval & Stachenfeld in New York, including a former chairman of its real estate practice and a senior partner.

Joining Duval & Stachenfeld are Thomas O'Connor, who served as the head of Cooley's real estate group for six years, and Alan Cohen, a former senior partner in that group. Also moving are Maureen Hannon, who is of counsel, and Michael Estreicher, a senior associate.

O'Connor's departure follows the appointment in January of Antonio Calabrese as chairman of Cooley's real estate practice. Calabrese works from Cooley's Reston, Va., office. O'Connor served as head of the practice until Calabrese's appointment.

Duval & Stachenfeld focuses on real estate law and also serves corporate, litigation and bankruptcy clients. About 50 of the firm's lawyers work on real estate matters. Founding partner Patrick Duval, a transactions lawyer, is a former Latham & Watkins partner, and founder Bruce Stachenfeld, a Harvard Law School graduate, was a partner at Shapiro, Shapses, Block & Stachenfeld. Duval & Stachenfeld was formed in 1997.

Cohen said that his new firm offers a better platform for real estate work, which is not a key focus for Cooley, he said.

"We weren't getting the green light to grow the practice the way we wanted to," he said.

Cooley declined to comment on the attorneys' departures.

O'Connor did not immediately respond to a request for comment. His real estate finance clients have included Starwood Property Trust Inc., Safra Bank of New York, Oritani Bank and Arbor Realty Trust. He previously worked at Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

Cohen, a former partner at Morrison Cohen, has represented Centurian Realty LLC, Squaw Valley Ski Corp. and Caribbean Property Group.

N.Y. Real Estate Boutique Hires Cooley Partners

Four real estate attorneys have jumped from Cooley to 60-lawyer Duval & Stachenfeld in New York, including a former chairman of its real estate practice and a senior partner.

Joining Duval & Stachenfeld are Thomas O'Connor, who served as the head of Cooley's real estate group for six years, and Alan Cohen, a former senior partner in that group. Also moving are Maureen Hannon, who is of counsel, and Michael Estreicher, a senior associate.

O'Connor's departure follows the appointment in January of Antonio Calabrese as chairman of Cooley's real estate practice. Calabrese works from Cooley's Reston, Va., office. O'Connor served as head of the practice until Calabrese's appointment.

Duval & Stachenfeld focuses on real estate law and also serves corporate, litigation and bankruptcy clients. About 50 of the firm's lawyers work on real estate matters. Founding partner Patrick Duval, a transactions lawyer, is a former Latham & Watkins partner, and founder Bruce Stachenfeld, a Harvard Law School graduate, was a partner at Shapiro, Shapses, Block & Stachenfeld. Duval & Stachenfeld was formed in 1997.

Cohen said that his new firm offers a better platform for real estate work, which is not a key focus for Cooley, he said.

"We weren't getting the green light to grow the practice the way we wanted to," he said.

Cooley declined to comment on the attorneys' departures.

O'Connor did not immediately respond to a request for comment. His real estate finance clients have included Starwood Property Trust Inc., Safra Bank of New York, Oritani Bank and Arbor Realty Trust. He previously worked at Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

Cohen, a former partner at Morrison Cohen, has represented Centurian Realty LLC, Squaw Valley Ski Corp. and Caribbean Property Group.

Real Estate Disputes Between Church and Parish

Over the last several years, there have been a number of cases involving the Episcopal Church and/or its dioceses and/or its parishes and disputes over ownership of church property. Specifically, as the Episcopal Church as a whole has become more theologically/doctrinally progressive, various parishes and dioceses that espouse a more conservative view have been breaking off from it and, sometimes, attempting to take their real estate with them.

Square Feet: Commercial Real Estate Web Sites Increase in Popularity

But the two branches of the family may be growing closer. In recent months, the marketing teams for some New York office buildings have decided to get the word out by deploying the type of stylish Web sites once used only by luxury condominiums.

Unlike the Web sites of office buildings past, which tended to be bare-bones and buried deep within a landlord’s corporate home page, this new crop stands alone and crackles with animation, exuberant language and videos.

And by publicizing details like where telecom cables enter the building, these sites add transparency to a business that can seem clubby and secretive.

“Lunches with brokers is an old-school way of getting your message out,” said Grant Greenspan, a broker and principal at the Kaufman Organization, a landlord that has set up Web sites for two of its buildings, 100-104 Fifth Avenue and 550 Seventh Avenue. But, he added, “it’s only as good as the group of brokers who you perceive to have the clients.”

By introducing buildings to the public online to generate demand, Mr. Greenspan said, “you get clients going to their brokers and saying, ‘Why aren’t you showing me this building?’ ”

The site for 100-104 Fifth Avenue, a pair of joined, early-20th-century buildings near Union Square that Kaufman co-owns with Invesco Real Estate, was also useful in chronicling the $15 million renovation that occurred after the development team bought the property out of bankruptcy in 2010 for $94 million.

The renovation, which took two years, included adding a fire safety system and six elevators and redesigning a pair of lobbies. All of this is described in a colorful, animated timeline on the Web site, 100-104fifth.com, as are the specifics about those telecom cables.

The Kaufman Organization credited the site with helping to fill the 270,000-square-foot building quickly. It is at 98 percent occupancy today, up from 60 percent when the landlord bought it.

According to Mr. Greenspan, all six tenants signed there since 2010 said the site had played a major role in piquing their interest. Those tenants include Yelp, the online review business; Apple’s iAd, an advertising network; and Net-a-Porter, a women’s apparel retailer. They pay rents ranging from $45 to $60 per square foot, Kaufman said.

Similarly, at 550 Seventh Avenue, which Kaufman recently began managing for Adler Group, a new Web site is being used to rebrand the 12-story building in the garment district, where fashion tenants have historically held sway.

The Web site, 550seventhave.com, may surprise property owners who tend to be tight-lipped about their tenants. It shows the directory in the building’s lobby, revealing that Lilly Pulitzer, Donna Karan International and Oscar de la Renta have offices inside.

The site, introduced in October, is already paying off. An 11,000-square-foot space on the 10th floor is expected to be leased this month to a software company, Mr. Greenspan said, adding that the $30,000 cost of making both sites, plus the hours logged by a full-time worker, had been worth every penny.

If Web sites “facilitate renting the spaces 60 or 90 days sooner, they make all the sense in the world,” he said.

Some major New York landlords, like the Chetrit Group, have no online presence. And even when Web sites do exist, they can be a bit stolid, offering little more than the year the building was completed, its architect and its total square footage, as with the General Motors Building, owned by Boston Properties. Brokers say that when a high-rise has existed for years and is one of Manhattan’s prized addresses as well, it may not have to promote itself online.

A new office building must do more, especially when it hasn’t even come out of the ground yet. In those cases, a Web site is essential to allow tenants to visualize their future home, said Christopher V. Albanese, president of the Albanese Organization, a Long Island-based developer. These sites tend to be extremely eye-catching and could easily be mistaken for ones intended to sell multimillion-dollar condos.

In November, the Albanese Organization unveiled 510w22.com, for 510 West 22nd Street, a planned 170,000-square-foot office building in West Chelsea. The centerpiece of the artful Web site is a four-minute video narrated by the architect Rick Cook, which brims with dramatic music and soaring shots of the adjacent High Line.

Creating such a Hollywood-caliber product, which includes renderings that normally would not have been commissioned, doubled the building’s marketing budget — “but without it, tenants might think that this was just some ordinary building, and it really isn’t,” Mr. Albanese said.

Also, financing for the $150 million project cannot be secured until the building is 30 percent leased, he said, making a dynamic marketing tool all the more important.

Though online videos for commercial real estate are not widespread, they are gaining in popularity.

The Web site for 7 Bryant Park, a 28-story office building that Hines is developing on Avenue of the Americas, features a two-minute video. A piano tinkles; the camera swoops.

Real Estate Disputes Between Church and Parish

Over the last several years, there have been a number of cases involving the Episcopal Church and/or its dioceses and/or its parishes and disputes over ownership of church property. Specifically, as the Episcopal Church as a whole has become more theologically/doctrinally progressive, various parishes and dioceses that espouse a more conservative view have been breaking off from it and, sometimes, attempting to take their real estate with them.

Lawyers Say Estate Planning Is Hot Following Gas Boom

Credit: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Trusts and estates lawyers in Central and Western Pennsylvania said they've recently seen an uptick in inquiries from landowners with oil and gas interests who are interested in beginning the process of estate planning.

But, those lawyers added, there are several schools of thought regarding when -- and even if -- it's advisable for a landowner to consider gifting those interests.

R. Douglas DeNardo, a shareholder at Rothman Gordon in Pittsburgh and chairman of the firm's estates, trusts and taxation department, told the Delaware Law Weekly that inquiries have been "way up" recently, mostly from people who own land in the Utica Shale regions of Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, where there are high concentrations of "wet" gas.

Wet gas is a combination of methane and other components such as propane, benzenes and ethane that, in the current market, is much more valuable than "dry" gas, which is almost pure methane.

Dale A. Tice, head of the gas planning group at Marshall, Parker & Associates in Williamsport, Pa., said he began receiving an influx of calls from landowners with oil and gas interests in 2010, when the estate tax was originally scheduled to revert back to a $1 million exemption at the beginning of 2011.

While a last-minute agreement between President Barack Obama and Congress stopped that from happening, Tice said his practice has continued to be busy.

"There has certainly been an increase in the amount of work I'm doing for landowners with the goal of protecting their oil and gas rights and royalty income for future generations," Tice said.

But while DeNardo called the oil and gas boom "the most exciting thing that's come along in estate planning in years," he noted that not everyone is a good candidate, explaining that there are several considerations to be made before moving forward with estate planning.

First of all, DeNardo said, not all landowners with potentially valuable oil and gas interests are necessarily wealthy.

For them, he said, it's especially important to consider whether it would be prudent to give those interests away -- and to spend money doing so -- prematurely.

Subscribe to The Legal Intelligencer

You must be signed in to comment on an article

Sign In or Subscribe
">

Real Estate Disputes Between Church and Parish

Over the last several years, there have been a number of cases involving the Episcopal Church and/or its dioceses and/or its parishes and disputes over ownership of church property. Specifically, as the Episcopal Church as a whole has become more theologically/doctrinally progressive, various parishes and dioceses that espouse a more conservative view have been breaking off from it and, sometimes, attempting to take their real estate with them.

Judge Rejects Beasley Firm's Abuse of Process Suit in Estate Case

In the latest chapter in the fight over the estate of famed trial lawyer James E. Beasley Sr., his old firm is appealing a decision that its claim against another law firm for alleged abuse of civil process was filed too late.

Loeb & Loeb Adds Team of Trust and Estate Attorneys in D.C.

By Matthew HuismanAll Articles

The National Law Journal

September 14, 2012

Loeb & Loeb has added a team of attorneys to its trust and estates department in Washington, D.C.

Mary Ann Mancini, Susan Blumenthal, Tanya Harvey and Caitlin Murphy were formerly attorneys with Bryan Cave. Mancini joins as a partner, Blumenthal and Harvey sign on as senior counsel and Murphy joins as an associate.

In an interview, Mancini described the group as a full-service estate and trust group. She said the group made the lateral jump because the trust and estate group is a core practice at Loeb that focuses on the needs of individuals.

"Loeb is so attuned to private clients and understands it so well that my client's other legal needs can be met because they are used to helping individuals," Mancini said. She said that her team will be kept busy in part because of the possible changes to the current estate tax law which are set to expire at the end of the year.

"We are tremendously busy this year because of the potential changes in the estate tax law that could take place at the end of the year," Mancini said. "I think [Loeb] will be more agile and more responsive to any kind of change that Congress throws at us."

This article first appeared on The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.