Globally Trusted Family Office Lawyers

An uncertain and rapidly evolving geopolitical and economic landscape has put renewed focus on assessing the right investment and governance plans. Choosing a law firm capable of navigating these emerging challenges is crucial for family offices. Serving an expansive roster of clients worldwide with footprints in 19 global locations, our family offices lawyers excel in identifying opportunities, navigating shifting geopolitical tides and understanding varied cultural nuances.

Our extensive experience working with ultra-high net worth individuals and single and multi-family offices and our history of long-term client relationships makes us a preferred partner when family office clients need a trustworthy legal team with utmost discretion for their domestic and cross-border wealth management, asset allocation and risk mitigation. Our tailored approach empowers our clients with enhanced privacy and control consistent with the family’s wishes, enabling them to preserve their family’s values.

Our family offices practice merges the best talent and skills of attorneys in a full-service law firm setting to offer personalized counsel and tailored advice to families.

The family offices group draws on the knowledge and skills of our top ranked private wealth law group, which advises high-net-worth individuals, private banks, and private client groups of major financial institutions, foundations and charities on legal, tax planning and charitable giving issues. Offering a single point of contact to clients, our family office lawyers are supported by a global team of multilingual and multijurisdictional attorneys to offer highly customized solutions that align with their succession and tax planning, business, lifestyle and charitable objectives.

With key personnel located across the Americas, Middle East and Europe, the group is staffed with highly-skilled attorneys in complementary practice areas such as trusts and estates, tax, corporate, immigration, employee benefits, litigation, and real estate, who are able to provide a wide range of services to our clients, based on their needs.

Our HNW and family office clients frequently rely on our skilled immigration team to facilitate immigration for their families and employees wishing to live abroad and seek reliable advice on benefits, drawbacks and tax implications.

Our private client group possesses world-class experience in working with families across jurisdictions where they reside, are domiciled, and where their businesses operate. We work with families to understand their goals and their strategic vision for structuring and governing their wealth. With such goals in mind, we bring our unique insight into family wealth structure strategies to preserve their family’s financial standing for generations, while guaranteeing peace of mind and security to family members and incentives for those who contribute to their welfare and betterment. We help develop efficient structures that serve the best interests of the beneficiaries, while navigating complex family dynamics, which are designed to reduce the likelihood of intra-family disputes.

We devise effective structures that support family and outsiders’ participation in enterprise governance, management and operation and can provide a platform to engage in transactions to grow multi-generational wealth. We collaborate with our long-term clients on proactively preparing for wealth transfer, setting the groundwork for legacy planning and conflict-free transitions.

Curtis offers sophisticated estate and trust planning and administration advice, including the restructuring of domestic and international private client assets and holdings through the use of trusts and other entities, along with the creation of private trust companies and preparation of family charters. Our collective capability and knowledge in trust law, domestic and international tax, real estate, corporate and commercial law is unique.

We preserve and protect family wealth with a complete understanding of family members and beneficiaries’ tax implications and liabilities, personal risks, asset holdings and charitable inclinations.

The family philanthropy and the non-profit sector has evolved dramatically in the post-pandemic era. Families look to capitalize on their wealth to create a positive impact in the world. Aligned with that, a growing number of family offices and foundations are focused on furthering core family values by finding synergies between their financial portfolios and their philanthropic values and mission.

By navigating the complexities around impact investing and environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing, we help our clients contribute meaningfully and make impactful decisions while preserving and enhancing their family legacy.

Our multi-disciplinary team provides comprehensive services for domestic and cross-border transactions involving the purchase, financing and/or sale of traditional collectibles like art, yachts and aircrafts, as well as involving the emerging areas of investing, including cryptocurrency, NFTs and blockchain.

Where disputes may arise from financial management and governance issues or from disagreements over interpersonal outlooks and values, our team can swiftly step in to offer on the ground dispute resolution support in countries where our clients reside and operate. We have extensive experience with in and out-of-court dispute resolution involving contested probate, estate and trust litigation matters in jurisdictions in the U.S., Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.

Offering tailored approaches to reduce time and preserve family unity, we provide expert mediation and alternative dispute resolution counsel and practical and solutions oriented litigation advice when needed.

In an uncertain economy, family offices have shown a major shift towards alternative investment vehicles to diversify their portfolio and preserve their wealth, with an emphasis on investing in private equity funds, real estate transactions, venture capital investments, hedge fund allocations and collectables. Our cross-functional teams are skilled at identifying tailored approaches, guiding family office clients through the evolving investing landscape and providing counsel on all aspects of fund formation, investment terms negotiation, structuring, governance, and regulatory compliance across a wide range of alternative asset classes.