Planning Techniques for Large Estates 2025

Bobbi J. Bierhals has built her practice by developing creative and customized solutions for her clients. Her experience centers on tax and business planning for high-net-worth individuals and families. Her clients range from executives and first-generation entrepreneurs to multi-generational families, with net worth from $100 million to many billions of dollars, and include a number of individuals listed in the Forbes 400.

Bobbi’s breadth of experience across a wide range of client profiles enables her to help them identify and structure tax-advantageous structures for transferring wealth and business interests to younger generations. While many other estate planners focus almost exclusively on tax issues, Bobbi takes a holistic approach that balances tax and family considerations to fit each individual client’s goals. With a geographically diverse client base spanning the United States, Bobbi adeptly navigates the nuances of local law while addressing broader federal tax considerations.

Because of her extensive experience working with multi-generational, business-owning families, Bobbi is an expert in assisting owners of closely held businesses and their family offices with their unique planning needs. She advises her clients on private trust companies, corporate governance, succession planning, wealth transfer planning and family office structuring. She also coordinates other legal needs of family offices, from corporate transactions and real estate, to direct investing, employment law and aircraft acquisition, bringing in lawyers from McDermott or identifying external counsel as appropriate to provide the highest level of quality and service to her clients. Bobbi also has a particular interest in family law issues and has significant experience negotiating pre-marital agreements and partnering with family law attorneys to obtain desirable results in high-net-worth divorces.

Bobbi has received numerous accolades and industry recognitions, with Chambers High Net Worth reporting from its sources that Bobbi is “wicked smart and very strong technically…if you need the right answer and your life and company depend on it, you call Bobbi…her reasoning and attention to detail are industry-leading.” Leading publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Week, MSN Money, Private Wealth magazine and Financial Advisor magazine have quoted Bobbi frequently on various family office and estate planning topics. A member of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), Bobbi has also taught legal research and writing at Harvard Law School.

Julie Miraglia Kwon advises wealthy individuals, families, closely held businesses, charities and corporate fiduciaries on all aspects of estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer tax planning, trust and estate administration, business succession, charitable planning and governance, and contested trust and tax matters.

Julie formerly was the Philanthropic Advisor for Stanford University, where she collaborated with the Office of General Counsel and Stanford Management Company regarding endowment and charitable trust investment, complex gifts and bequests, and contested matters. Previously, she also was a national director with Bernstein Global Wealth Management, where she developed quantitative research regarding the effect of investment volatility on wealth transfer, and was the fiduciary counsel and Legacy Planner for the Midwest Region for Bessemer Trust Company. Julie is a former member of the board of directors of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the largest in the country.

Julie co-authors the tax treatise, Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax (by Harrington, Plaine, Zaritsky & Kwon, for Warren Gorham & Lamont), and the Tax Management Portfolio titled Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax (by Harrington & Kwon, for Bureau of National Affairs). Julie speaks frequently before and writes regularly for professional publications and organizations, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Dow Jones, Journal of Taxation, Trusts & Estates, the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, the Internal Revenue Service, the American Bar Association, the American Law Institute and numerous regional organizations.

While in law school, Julie was executive editor of the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities.