Architecting Trust Documents to Reinforce the Family Vision and Well-Being with Kim Kamin

Today, it is my pleasure to speak with Kim Kamin, partner and Chief Wealth Strategist at Gresham Partners LLC, an independent multi-family office serving about 120 separate families nationally. At Gresham, she leads the development and implementation of estate, wealth transfer, philanthropic, educational, and fiduciary planning activities.

Kim is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University Law School and is on the faculty for the University of Chicago Business School in executive education. She is on the UHNW Families & Family Offices Committee of the Trusts & Estates Magazine Editorial Advisory Board and is a Regent for the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, Past President of the Chicago Estate Planning Council, Planning Chair for the annual ALI-CLE Large Estates program, and Estate Planning & Legal Issues Domain Chair for the UHNW Institute.

Trusts are one of the most popular estate planning vehicles, especially in the US and a few other international jurisdictions, and Kim shares her views on how and why trusts came to be so widely used to plan and execute intergenerational wealth transitions, and how trust documents and the associated estate planning strategies evolved in the past few decades.

We are at the outset of the “Great Wealth Transfer” and trusts – both ones that have been in place for decades and ones that are being newly created – are once again at the center of wealth planning conversations. Kim offers her thoughts on some of the current trends and developments in estate planning and how thinking and usage of trusts is changing or evolving.

One practical advice Kim puts forth is to pay attention to the “the small things” when creating or working with trusts and estate plans, and highlights some of the frequently neglected details our listeners should be mindful of.

Another valuable tip Kim recommends is to draft trust documents for flexibility. She talks about what that entails and what both wealth owners and family advisors in our audience should consider to be able to make better use of trust documents and other estate planning tools.

You would not want to miss this conversation with one of the most knowledgeable, respected, and active thought leaders in the family wealth and estate planning space.