How to Use Trust Protectors in Client Plans – 2019 – The Missouribar

Originally presented on: November 27, 2019

The use of trust protectors and trust advisers are increasingly commonplace in in trust and estate planning. Trust protectors stand in the shoes of the trust settlor, ensuring that his or her wishes are fulfilled. Appointed the settlor, they are independent of trustees, potentially wielding substantial power over the trustee’s decisions, including adding or removing beneficiaries, making distributions, or even removing the trustee. The idea is the trust protector will have a global vision of the settlor’s wishes, judge trustee performance, and beneficiary needs. But these innovations come with administrative inefficiencies, additional costs, and complicated drafting. This program will provide you with a practical guide to planning with and drafting the duties of trust protectors and trust advisers for client trusts. 

• Role, sources of authority, and duties of trust protectors
• Differences between trust protectors and trust advisers
• Relationship of trust protectors to trust settlor, trustees, and beneficiaries
• Powers of trust protectors – trustee removal, investment veto, trust termination, beneficiary modification, direct distributions
• Costs and administrative issues of trust protectors and trust advisers
• Statutory and common law forms of trust protectors

Speaker: Daniel L. Daniels, Wiggin and Dana, LLP, Greenwich, CT

NOTE: This program was originally produced as a telephone seminar and is available on demand in streaming audio. This material qualifies for self-study credit only. Pursuant to Regulation 15.04.5, a lawyer may receive up to six hours of self-study credit in a reporting year. Self-study programs do not qualify for ethics or elimination of bias credit.