Robert Kirkland

Practice Areas

Bob works with a variety of individual clients, handling the preparation of estate planning instruments, and counseling clients in the areas of estate and gift tax minimization, probate avoidance, gifting techniques, asset protection, charitable planning and business succession planning. He also advises fiduciaries in estate, conservatorship and trust administration matters.

Career

Bob Kirkland is founding partner of the law firm of Kirkland Woods & Martinsen LLP, which has offices in Liberty, Missouri, Springfield, Missouri, Clayton, Missouri and Overland Park, Kansas. Mr. Kirkland is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (“ACTEC”), is a past Missouri State Chair of ACTEC, and a past member of the ACTEC Board of Regents and ACTEC Executive Committee. He is also a member of the Employee Benefits Committee (past Chair), Digital Property Task Force, Family Law Task Force, and Board of Directors of the ACTEC Foundation. He is listed in the last twenty-plus editions of The Best Lawyers in America and the most recent additions of Super Lawyers. Mr. Kirkland has successfully completed the Effective Probate Mediation Training course sponsored by ACTEC, and frequently serves as a mediator of trust and estate disputes.

Among several professional and civic activities, Mr. Kirkland serves as a Vice Chair of the Missouri Bar Probate and Trust Committee, and a member of the editorial board of Trusts and Estates magazine. He is also a member of the Program Committees of the Duke University Estate Planning Conference and the Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education’s (IICLE’s) Estates and Trusts Short Course, as well as a founding Chancellor of the Heart of America ACTEC Fellows Institute.

Professional Memberships

ACTEC Fellow

-Sponsorship Advisory Committee (Chair)

-Digital Property Task Force

-Membership Selection Committee

-Long Range Planning Committee

-Past Missouri State Chair

-Past member of the ACTEC Board of Regents and Executive Committee

-Communications Committee of ACTEC

-Missouri Bar Probate and Trust Committee, Vice Chair

-Trusts and Estates magazine, member of the editorial board

-Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association

-Kansas City Estate Planning Society

-Duke University Estate Planning Conference, member of the Program Commitee

-Illinois Insitute of Continuing Legal Education (IICLE's) Estates and Trusts Short Course, member of the program committee

Publications

Mr. Kirkland is a frequent author and lecturer in the estate planning and charitable giving areas. He has lectured on a variety of topics at seminars sponsored by ACTEC, The Heckerling Institute, ALI-CLE, Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, The Missouri Bar, The Kansas Bar Association, The Iowa Bar, IICLE, The Ohio Bar, The Idaho Bar, The Florida Bar, The Oklahoma Bar Association, the Hawaii Tax Institute, the Southern Federal Tax Institute, the Notre Dame Estate Planning Institute, the Duke University Estate Planning Conference, the ACTEC Florida Fellows Institute, the UCLA Institute on Estate Planning, The MO-KAN Trust Conference, the American Heart Association, and the Estate Planning Councils of Baltimore, Charlotte, Greenville, Little Rock, Louisville, New York City, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Boca Raton and West Palm Beach.