Three Generations, One Trust

The trusts that fail are rarely the ones with drafting errors. They are the ones drafted for people the settlor knew, administered for people the settlor never met.

Instruments meant to hold for three generations need three things their shorter-lived cousins do not: a mechanism for changing trustees without a courtroom; distribution standards written in principles rather than dollar figures; and an honest answer, recorded early, to the question every family eventually asks — who decides, when we disagree?

The measure of this work is negative space. The contest that never happens. The sibling call that stays a call. In seventy-eight years the firm has drafted instruments now serving their third generation; the ones we are proudest of have never been read aloud in court.

We expect to meet the fourth generation. The instruments are already written for them.