The MacLean Law Firm, P.C., Attorneys in New York City

Ian W. MacLean is an estates and trusts attorney. He advises clients on probate, estate and trust administration, related dispute resolution and litigation, estate and business succession planning, asset protection, related taxation and charitable giving. His practice is focused on helping people plan for and protect themselves, their families and their assets, fulfill their responsibilities as executors and trustees and ensure that their rights are protected as beneficiaries of estates and trusts. His law firm's practice philosophy is based on helping clients attain their goals and resolve or minimize concerns in the context of each client's values and complexity threshold. The law firm's clients include individuals, families, family businesses, entrepreneurs, successful executives, professionals, artists and retirees - people from many different walks of life.

Planning and Protection
Mr. MacLean counsels individuals and families on customized methods for protecting and passing on financial and other wealth, on philanthropy and leaving a lasting personal or family legacy, on managing and reducing taxation, on realizing goals and on reducing or eliminating concerns. Every client deserves the appropriate level of simplicity or complexity appropriate to his or her needs and wishes - from basic but comprehensive estate planning documents to more advanced planning techniques, including forming and managing family limited partnerships and limited liability companies, valuation discounting in the sale or gifting of assets using trusts, life insurance, private annuities, charitable and non-charitable trusts and family foundations.

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Administration, Dispute Resolution and Litigation

For over nineteen years, Mr. MacLean has counseled beneficiaries of estates and trusts and executors and trustees on their rights and responsibilities. In many instances, Mr. MacLean has resolved disputes between beneficiaries and fiduciaries without litigation. For five years, Mr. MacLean served as a senior trust officer at two national trust companies, where he supervised and managed trust relationships and federal trust banking compliance matters. This experience gives Mr. MacLean an insight and perspective into corporate fiduciaries that most lawyers do not have.

Professional Associations and Legislation

Mr. MacLean is active in state and local bar associations. On the Trusts and Estates Law Section of the New York State Bar Association, he is the co-chairman of the Government Relations and Legislation Committee, a former chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the Newsletter and Publications Committee and a former chairman of the Estate Planning Committee; on the New York City Bar Association he is a member of the Committee on Estate and Gift Taxation and a past member of the Committee on Trusts, Estates, and Surrogate's Courts; he is also a member of the Westchester County Bar Association. Mr. MacLean has been and continues to be intimately involved in efforts to improve the lives of New Yorkers by working on important legal issues and helping to draft and introduce legislation to improve the laws of New York State that affect estates, trusts, asset protection and related taxation.

Writing and Speaking

Mr. MacLean speaks frequently on estates and trusts matters, has authored articles on estates and trusts matters and is the current editor of the chapter "Jurisdiction of the Surrogate's Court" in Probate and Administration of Estates, New York State Bar Association, 2010.

Education and Bar Admission

Mr. MacLean earned a J.D. cum laude from New York Law School in 1992, where he was the Executive Articles Editor of the Law Review and an LL.M. in Taxation from New York University School of Law in 1997. He is admitted to practice law in New York State and in the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.