Is your family’s wealth being managed as strategically as the business that created it?
Family office planning is about more than transferring wealth. It is about administering, operating, and growing that wealth across generations. We serve families whose financial lives may include operating businesses, oil and gas interests, real estate holdings, technology companies, aviation assets, private investments and philanthropic initiatives. By bringing our Family Office and Private Wealth capabilities together with experience across the firm, we help families manage these interconnected interests as one enterprise while balancing tax efficiency, investment goals, risk and the needs of current and future generations. Our goal is to help each family create an enduring structure that supports its investments, reflects its values and gives future generations the foundation to thrive.
We build strategies around the family, not a formula.
For more than 120 years, we have advised business owners, entrepreneurs and families across generations, and we know the right family office structure depends on the family, its assets and what it wants to accomplish. Some families need a formal office with dedicated employees while others benefit from outsourcing key functions or using a combination of family members and independent professionals. We listen closely, ask the difficult questions, and help clients build or refine an operation that is appropriately structured, staffed and governed.
Our work includes:
- Family office formation, structuring and governance
- Tax-efficient structures across multiple generations
- Family councils, family constitutions, and other governance frameworks
- Private trust company evaluation and formation
- Selection and oversight of family members, independent advisors, and outside professionals
- Staffing, outsourcing and overhead analysis
- Technology systems for tracking investments, administration and reporting
- Coordination with accountants, investment managers, private bankers, trustees, and insurance professionals
- Written investment, distribution, and risk allocation policies
We also help families evaluate jurisdictions for private family trusts and private trust companies, including whether those structures support the family’s income tax, governance, and long-term institutional goals.
Complex assets demand more than fragmented advice
Families with substantial wealth rarely own a simple portfolio. Their interests may span closely held companies, mineral assets, commercial real estate, aircraft, emerging technology ventures and investments across multiple entities and trusts. Our oil and gas experience is a particularly important strength, allowing us to understand the operational, transactional, and regulatory issues surrounding assets that often drive family wealth.
We draw on lawyers across our corporate, tax, trusts and estates, oil and gas, real estate, aviation, employment, litigation, fiduciary services and government relations practices. This integrated approach allows us to help families address the underlying assets as well as the family office structure that holds and manages them. Whether the issue involves an acquisition, a real estate development, a regulatory matter, a fiduciary question, or a request for government incentives, we assemble the right team without losing sight of the family’s larger strategy.
Family capital should be ready to move into the future
Today’s family offices have become an increasingly important source of private capital, particularly when traditional financing may not be available or cannot move quickly enough. We help families aggregate capital, evaluate opportunities and structure investments that reflect their objectives, risk tolerance, and time horizon. We also advise family offices investing alongside one another in significant transactions, including projects that require multiple families to combine resources.
Our lawyers counsel family offices on direct investments, lending arrangements, private equity transactions, acquisitions and dispositions, operating company matters and investments made through trusts or other family entities. When a trust owns an operating business or a beneficiary wants to pursue an investment, we help determine which entity or trust should participate, how the transaction should be documented and how it fits within the family’s broader tax, investment and risk allocation strategy.
We also work with families following a liquidity event, including entrepreneurs who have transitioned out of an operating company and must decide how to preserve, deploy, and continue growing newly created wealth. Moving from running a business to overseeing a diversified investment enterprise requires a different structure, discipline, and approach. We help families make that transition thoughtfully while retaining the ability to act when the right opportunity arises.
Lasting wealth depends on family alignment
Preserving wealth across generations requires more than strong investment performance. It requires clear governance, thoughtful succession planning, and an honest understanding of the roles different family members want to play. We help families build frameworks that respect their differences while protecting the interests of beneficiaries and the enterprise.
We bring a unique perspective and firsthand knowledge of the realities facing multigenerational family enterprises, as well as an understanding of how difficult conversations about money, control, opportunity and responsibility can become. We often serve as a sounding board, helping families define shared goals, communicate expectations and address potential conflicts before they threaten relationships or value. That work may include succession planning, fiduciary oversight, beneficiary distributions, philanthropic planning, multigenerational education, and the selection of the appropriate trust or entity to meet a family member’s needs.