Vicki is a personable, forthright, and client oriented attorney that loves the law and its processes.  She has served as trustee and executor and knows how to assist families in the process of estate settlement and the efficient transfer of assets to beneficiaries. She has supervised probate court proceedings, filing of tax returns, sale of assets, portfolio management and the resolution of creditor’s claims.

Vicki focuses her practice on a broad range of trust and estate matters, including design, drafting and implementation of wills and trusts; federal wealth transfer taxes; federal income taxation of trusts and estates; fiduciary administration and probate; wealth planning with life insurance; business succession planning; and fiduciary litigation. Vicki has extensive experience in the preparation of wills and trusts and all aspects of planning for the transfer of wealth between families and individuals. She regularly counsels clients on the basic principles of the federal transfer tax system, including estate tax, gift tax and the generation-skipping tax. Her practice includes counseling clients on the income tax issues arising in the context of forming and administering trusts and estates, and simple and complex trusts. 

Vicki has administered large and complex estates in Florida and Connecticut. She advises individual fiduciaries in connection with the planning and administration of substantial and complex trusts and estates. Vicki has served as trustee and executor for complex estates.

Vicki also has experience with the issues that the owners of closely held businesses face in the operation and disposition of their business interests. She assists clients and their other professionals with the formation and reorganization of closely held corporations, partnerships, and limited liability companies.

 

Vicki’s practice also focuses on planning with life insurance, including funding buy/sell agreements, providing liquidity for the estate and restoration of capital used for taxes.

 

Prior to starting her own firm, Vicki spent a year with TrustCounsel, a boutique estate planning firm with offices in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Florida and New York. Prior to that, Vicki was a partner in the Trust and Estate department at McLaughlin & Stern, a leading New York estate planning and administration firm.  In that capacity she developed and prepared basic and sophisticated estate plans for diverse clients.  In addition, she administered large estates and trusts. 

 

Before transitioning her practice to trusts and estates in 2010, Vicki was litigation partner at Hughes Hubbard & Reed, and Stearns Weaver Miller in Miami, Florida. As a litigation partner, Vicki developed extensive experience in the banking industry.  She has handled cases involving consumer fraud, creditors’ rights, directors and officers liability, accountant’s liability, employee fidelity claims, money laundering, and right to financial privacy issues. She regularly counseled clients in connection with regulatory exams and represented clients in connection with third party grand jury investigations.

 

Vicki co-authored the article “Due Diligence For Prospective Board Members, What You Need To Know When You’ve Been Asked to Join a Board”.

 

In her spare time Vicki enjoys riding her horse, cooking, pilates, and traveling.

 

Professional Highlights

 

• Vicki successfully represented two trust beneficiaries in a collateral attack on a $300 million trust in Michigan;

• She successfully defended the surviving spouse in a $40 million will contest;

• Vicki represented a French ship builder in a billion dollar bankruptcy action involving foreign tax entities and a fleet of Polynesian cruise ships;

• She represented an arms dealer in a partnership dispute involving $1.6 billion sale of arms from France to Iraq;

• Vicki was lead counsel for one of Florida’s largest banks in a $170 million Class Action brought by 500 homeowners for consumer fraud, breach of contract, and truth-in-lending violations;

• She successfully defended a Big Five accounting firm in an accountant’s malpractice action seeking more than $150 million in damages based on the failure of Southeast Bank, N.A.;

• Vicki conducted an internal corporate investigation and supervised two related parallel grand jury investigations in a case involving a $120 million bank fraud;

• She designed an alternative dispute resolution program for a $60 million consumer fraud action instituted by the Attorney General in New Jersey.

 

Distinctions

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Women Leaders in the Law (2015), AV Preeminent Peer Review Rating by Martindale-Hubbell, the highest rating from Martindale-Hubbell, given only to those attorneys recognized for their superior ethics and legal ability by their peers.

 

Practice Areas

 

• Trusts and Estates

• Estate Administration including Probate

• Taxation

• Fiduciary Litigation

 

Education

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• University of Miami (B.A., Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society, Golden Key National Honor Society)

• Fordham University School of Law (J.D., American Jurisprudence Award in Trusts and Estates)

• Western New England School of Law (LL.M., Program in Estate Planning and Elder Law)  

 

Bar Admissions

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• North Carolina

• New York

• Florida

• New Jersey (non-practising)

• Texas (non-practising) 

 

Memberships

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• New York State Bar Association

• Florida State Bar Association

• North Carolina Bar Association Estate Planning and Fiduciary Law Section

• WealthCounsel

• Durham Orange Estate Planning Council