Snell & Wilmer LLP

Firm details

Firm's Managing Partner: Barb Dawson

Headquarters: Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Number of attorneys: 515

Languages: Arabic, Armenian, Bengali, Chinese (Mandarin), Chinese (Shanghai Dialect), Czech, English, Farsi, Finnish, French, German, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Shangtonese, Spanish, Swedish, Taiwanese, Ukrainian

Firm overview

Founded in 1938, Snell & Wilmer is a business law firm with almost 500 attorneys practicing in 16 locations in the United States and Mexico. The firm’s clients include major national and multinational corporations, educational and research institutions, municipalities and government agencies, nonprofits, charitable organizations, industry executives and high-net-worth individuals.

Snell & Wilmer recognizes one straightforward fact — clients care less about the firm’s internal workings and more about the degree to which the firm understands their business, their industry and the trends and challenges that can affect their ability to minimize risk and maximize success. This strong external focus and the diverse experience of Snell & Wilmer’s attorneys enable the firm to help clients solve problems, achieve opportunities and deal efficiently with an ever-changing economic, business and legal landscape.

Main areas of practice (related to high net worth individuals)

• Estate Planning
• Private Client Services
• Probates
• Trusts and Estates

Firm clients face a range of challenges that affect their personal and professional goals, including difficult family legacy decisions, ongoing legislative and regulatory changes, evolving market conditions and an increased focus by tax authorities on high-wealth individuals. Simultaneously, there is no “typical” problem in the area of estate planning; the mix of life circumstances and business and personal assets is unique for every individual, family and company Snell & Wilmer serves.

At Snell & Wilmer, attorneys strive to help high net worth individuals, executors, trustees and beneficiaries accomplish specific objectives and achieve overall sound wealth management and protection. S&W attorneys have experience with estate planning, charitable planning, establishing private family foundations and public charities, business succession planning and international estate planning. We rely on our firsthand experience with estate and gift tax laws, our commitment to confidentiality and our reputation for providing high-quality representation to offer our clients comprehensive wealth management services that are tailored to their individual needs.

Relevant representative experience includes:

• Prepared estate planning documents that take advantage of the unlimited federal tax marital deduction, so there will be no estate tax at the death of the first spouse. For couples of substantial means or with significant life insurance benefits, a "credit shelter" trust is utilized to minimize taxes at the second death.
• Structured lifetime trusts for a child with a disability that would not diminish the public benefits otherwise available to the child. The child's parents also requested special planning for the long-term care issues involved with their estate planning.
• Structured the assets, pension and insurance benefits to minimize the risk to a client's family. The client, an obstetrician, wanted estate planning that would incorporate protections from potential malpractice claims.
• Argued before state Court of Appeals that language contained in a trust agreement drafted by another law firm effectively waived the benefit of the state's life insurance exemption statute.
• Assisted with tax and protection issues involving an art collection belonging to a French citizen who moved to the United States shortly before his death.

Practice areas

• AgriFinance
• Antitrust
• Appellate
• Bankruptcy & Reorganization
• Blockchain & Digital Currency
• Commercial Finance
• Commercial Litigation
• Construction
• Corporate & Securities
• Cybersecurity, Data Protection & Privacy
• Data Centers
• Education
• Election/Political
• Emerging Business
• Employee Benefits & Compensation
• Energy & Utilities
• Environmental
• Financial Services/Litigation
• Franchise Services/Litigation
• Gaming
• Government Relations
• Healthcare
• Immigration
• Infrastructure Development & Project Finance
• Insurance
• Intellectual Property & Technology
• Intellectual Property Litigation
• Internal Investigations & Regulatory Compliance
• International
• Labor & Employment
• Life Sciences & Medical Technology
• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Mining Industry Services
• Military
• Native American Affairs
• Non-Profit/Tax Exempt Organizations
• Oil & Gas
• Pharmaceuticals & Medical Devices
• Product Liability Litigation
• Professional Liability Litigation
• Public Utilities
• Real Estate
• Renewable Energy
• Retail & Franchising
• Safety & Health
• SEC Reporting & Corporate Governance
• Tax - General Federal; State & Local
• TCPA
• Telecommunications
• Transportation
• Venture Capital & Private Equity
• Water
• White Collar Defense & Investigations
• Zoning & Land Use

Offices

Mexico

1. Los Cabos

United States

1. Albuquerque
2. Boise
3. Dallas
4. Denver
5. Las Vegas
6. Los Angeles
7. Orange County
8. Phoenix
9. Portland (Oregon)
10. Reno
11. Salt Lake City
12. San Diego
13. Seattle
14. Tucson
15. Washington, D.C.