Stephanie Graff Newman is Counsel to the firm’s Trusts & Estates Practice Group. She brings more than 30 years of experience representing high net worth individuals and business owners in trusts and estates, wealth preservation and estate and trust administration.
Her multi-faceted approach to estate planning is based on achieving a balance of sometimes competing objectives – the desire to transfer wealth at the lowest tax cost while fulfilling the client’s family, philosophical and charitable objectives. She has extensive experience in navigating the issues that can arise among family members and seeks to assist clients in achieving their goals while promoting family harmony. Stephanie’s practice has included the structure of insurance trusts, generation-skipping trusts, spousal lifetime access trusts, intentionally defective grantor trusts, and qualified personal residence trusts, as well as advising clients on the decanting of existing trusts, and use of appropriate vehicles for the tax-efficient gifting of ownership interests in both active businesses and more passive investments. Stephanie also advises clients on all aspects of estate and trust administration, including post-mortem tax planning which can yield significant tax savings. She believes in working closely with her client’s other advisors to create a team approach to achieving each client’s personal objectives.
Prior to joining the firm, Stephanie practiced Trusts & Estates and Estate Administration as a Partner at Newman & Newman, P.C., in New York City since 1993.