Daniel Studin represents individuals, families, family offices, executors, trustees and beneficiaries in estate planning, estate and trust administration and related litigation.
Daniel has drafted thousands of wills and trust agreements. He has extensive experience engaging in planning designed to reduce income and wealth transfer taxes for ultra-high-net-worth individuals. In this regard, he regularly advises clients on tax and non-tax matters concerning intra-family gifts, trust planning, intra-family sales and other estate planning transactions. He also regularly represents clients in estate and trust disputes, tax audits and other sensitive matters. As such, he frequently appears in court in will and trust contests, accounting proceedings, turnover actions, adult guardianship actions and other proceedings.
Daniel also routinely advises clients on a broad array of other tax and non-tax structuring matters, including business succession, creditor protection, charitable planning, and the formation and administration of public charities and private foundations. He has extensive experience advising clients concerning the tax and operational rules that apply to private foundations and how they fit into a family’s ecosystem of private investments and trusts, including the rules under Chapter 42 of the Internal Revenue Code.
Daniel takes a highly personalized approach to his practice. He is a strong believer that details matter. He makes sure that, no matter the level of complexity, his clients have a complete understanding of the issues at hand, the consequences of a particular decision and available alternatives.
Daniel serves an “outside GC” role for a number of family office clients and clients who are equity owners of closely-held, family-operated businesses. In this regard, Daniel is often initially retained to design tax-efficient and asset-protected wealth transfer and succession plans, but becomes more of a general outside advisor who is called upon to provide advice on more varied topics.
Daniel is an active member of the Bar and a regular speaker and writer on trusts and estates topics. His articles on estate planning and estate and trust controversy have been published by the American Bar Association's Trusts and Estates magazine and Law360. Daniel has established a reputation as an authority on estate planning for tax mitigation, and was recently quoted by The Wall Street Journal on trust planning by founders and investors of early stage companies concerning qualified small business stock.
He has served as faculty for numerous continuing legal education programs hosted by the New York State Bar Association, the New York City Bar Association and other organizations. He is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the New York State Bar Association’s Trusts and Estates Section, Vice-Chair of the NYS Bar Association's Estate Litigation Committee, a member of the Trusts and Estates Section of the New York City Bar Association, and an affiliate member of the NYC Bar Association’s Estate and Gift Tax Committee.
Daniel joined the firm in 2017 from the New York office of an international law firm.