Trusts & Estates and Family Law

The attorneys of Stites & Harbison’s Trusts & Estate Planning Group routinely serve clients in a range of matters that include:

• Wills
• Living trusts
• Irrevocable trust agreements
• Marital deduction trusts
• Generation-skipping trusts
• Qualified personal residence trusts
• GRATs and GRUTs
• Trusts for minors
• Powers of attorney
• Advance medical directives
• Tax counsel for minimizing current income taxes, future inheritance and estate taxes, and taxes on retirement
• Handling of income tax matters at death
• Planning to avoid the generation-skipping tax
• Exercising powers of appointment
• Beneficiary and distribution decisions under qualified retirement plans and IRAs

Family Law

The Nashville, Tennessee-based Family Law practice of Stites & Harbison focuses almost exclusively on divorce, child custody, support, and family issues. Representing clients with marital estates ranging from a few hundred thousand dollars to more than a hundred million dollars, the group handles a wide variety of issues that arise before, during, and after marriages and other family relationships. The "before" includes the negotiation and drafting of prenuptial agreements. The "during" includes issues related to separation, divorce and custody. The "after" includes post-divorce disputes, appeals and other challenges to divorce or custody decrees.

Members of our group have a combined 90-plus years of family law experience. This experience includes the valuation and division of substantial business interests and intellectual properties, as well as structuring workable parenting plans in difficult situations.

Our experience has taught us that there is no such thing as a "cookie cutter" family lawsuit. Our attorneys have represented clients in divorces that cross state and national boundaries, and which involve international custody disputes and difficult jurisdictional issues. We commit to every client the same level of care, attention to detail, accessibility and sensitivity to privacy. We bring to bear in each case the resources necessary to properly resolve that case, including obtaining expert assistance for the appraisal of property and finding psychological and counseling professionals when needed.

One of the things that makes Stites & Harbison’s family law practice unique is our ability to draw upon the knowledge of other attorneys in the firm for assistance with issues involving real property, taxes, retirement plans, business disputes, immigration, and a host of other difficult questions.