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Lanikai Beach on the windward coast of Oahu, Hawai’i
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Counseling Generations of Clients on Financial and Estate Planning

The attorneys at Goodsill provide comprehensive counsel to clients on all aspects of estate planning, trust administration, probate, conservatorship, will contests, trust controversies, family business planning, private foundations and charitable organizations.

We have served generations of clients from many backgrounds, family circumstances and levels of wealth. To achieve each client’s objective, attorneys in the trusts and estates group work directly with their clients and, when appropriate, as part of a counseling team that might include other attorneys in the firm, accountants, financial planners, trust officers, insurance agents or other professional advisers. We are counsel to Hawai‘i’s corporate fiduciaries, and to trustees of some of Hawai‘i’s largest trusts.

The Services We Provide

  • Basic estate planning: Preparing revocable living trusts, wills, durable powers of attorney, advance health care directives and irrevocable trusts, including life insurance trusts
  • Advanced estate planning: Preparing generation-skipping trusts, family limited partnerships, qualified domestic trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, charitable remainder trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, asset protection trusts and intentionally “defective” grantor trusts
  • International estate planning: Advising on U.S. estate tax matters and preparation of domestic documents for non-U.S. citizens, including trusts, wills, partnerships or other entities
  • Family Business Planning
  • Business succession planning: Documenting buy-sell agreements for corporations and partnerships, choice of business entity decisions, reorganizations of corporations to achieve estate planning goals and asset protection planning
  • Probate and trust administration: Representing fiduciaries (personal representatives of probate estates and trustees of trusts) on all aspects of probate and trust administration, including issues of accounting for principal and income, income taxation of trusts and estates, tax compliance, prudent investor decisions and fiduciary responsibility and liability
  • Post-mortem planning: Counseling families, fiduciaries and accountants regarding planning after death, including disclaimers, tax elections and allocation between sub-trusts
  • Will and trust disputes: Defending fiduciaries in will and trust contests, as well as advocating for beneficiaries in will and trust challenges
  • Fiduciary litigation: Defending fiduciaries in suits for breach of fiduciary duty, as well as advancing claims for beneficiaries for fiduciary abuse
  • Tax controversies: Representing fiduciaries in connection with estate tax and income tax audits, including issues of valuations, discounts and tax elections
  • Controversy and Litigation

Discuss estates and trusts with our attorneys in an initial consultation. To reach us, call 808-547-5600 or send us an email.

Key Contacts

Image of Rosemarie S.J. Sam

Rosemarie S.J. Sam

Partner

(808) 547-5663 [email protected]

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