Private clients

Our private client lawyers advise high net worth clients - including entrepreneurs, investors, families and family businesses - on the legal issues involved in growing wealth and protecting assets.

We know that building wealth is about much more than making money. It’s about having the means to create a legacy: one that can help both our family and the causes we believe in.

That’s why we take a holistic approach to advising our private clients. We don’t just consider the law, but work hard to understand your individual objectives, as well as the relationships and temperaments involved.

By taking this approach, we can advise you on everything from setting up and managing a self-managed super fund (SMSF), family trust or charitable trust, to creating an effective succession plan.

We can even help you defend a claim on an estate or bring a claim yourself if you feel you haven’t been fairly provided for.

And we’ll always do it in an environment of absolute discretion where your privacy and security are paramount.

We can:

• Help you protect your wealth by setting up a family or discretionary trust, a company or other legal structure.

• Advise you on estate planning, including setting up a testamentary trust, so that your money goes exactly where you intend it to and your wealth isn’t dissipated by unnecessary tax.

• Help you with both individual and family tax planning by advising you on the best structure to protect your wealth.

• Help you identify and protect against risks to your wealth.

• Help you set up a family business succession plan that will help you reach your business objectives and minimise the chance of a legal dispute.

• Help you challenge a Will or defend a Will from being challenged by an aggrieved family member or beneficiary.

• Advise you on family loans, guarantees and security arrangements to let you help out family members without compromising fairness.

• Advise you on setting up and managing a charitable trust so that you can support the causes you believe in on an ongoing basis.

• Advise you on all areas of philanthropy, including setting up a private ancillary fund (PAF) to let you take a planned approach to giving.

• Represent you in a family dispute, or help you resolve it through negotiation and other alternative dispute resolution techniques.