Estates · Trusts · Family governance
Counsel that outlasts the transaction.
We write the arrangements a family lives inside for thirty years — and the sentences a court may read long after everyone who agreed to them is gone.
“The Trustee shall make no distribution of principal to a beneficiary under twenty-five years, save where the Trustee is satisfied the distribution is for education, medical care, or a first home.”
What we do
Private client work, and the disputes that follow when it was done badly the first time.
- i Wills and estate planning Drafting that survives a change of tax code, a second marriage, and a beneficiary nobody expected.→
- ii Trusts and trusteeship Discretionary, life-interest and charitable trusts. We also sit as trustee where a family would rather the decision sat outside it.→
- iii Probate and administration Taking an estate from death certificate to final distribution, with the tax filings that go with it.→
- iv Family governance Constitutions, family councils and succession agreements for families who own something together and intend to keep it.→
- v Philanthropy Private foundations and donor-advised funds, structured so the giving outlives the giver.→
- vi Contested estates Will challenges, trustee removal and claims between siblings. Handled quietly where that is still possible.→
How we work
Five stages. The first is free, and often the one that changes what the rest of it costs.
First conversation
Ninety minutes with a partner. You describe the family; we tell you what is straightforward and what is not. No charge, no engagement letter yet.
Position paper
A written summary of your assets, your people and the decisions in front of you — in plain language, before any drafting begins.
Drafting
Two rounds included. We show you the operative clauses in isolation, so you are reading what matters instead of forty pages of recitals.
Execution
Signing, witnessing and safe custody. Copies to your accountant and, if you want them there, your children.
Review every three years
Diarised by us, not by you. Tax changes, families change, and a document that fit in 2026 will not fit in 2039.
The partners
Eleanor Halloway
Partner · Estates and trusts
Nineteen years drafting for families with assets in more than one jurisdiction. Sits as professional trustee on eleven trusts. Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.
Nathaniel Finch
Partner · Governance and disputes
Litigated will challenges for fourteen years before deciding it was better to prevent them. Writes the family constitutions, and takes the contested matters when prevention came too late.
A note
The clause nobody reads until it is too late
Most wills we are asked to review are competent. The failure is rarely the drafting — it is the discretion clause, which hands a trustee a decision the family never discussed.
A trustee inherits a judgement call the family avoided making while they still could.
When a parent leaves distribution “at the trustee's absolute discretion” without saying what the money is for, the trustee is left to guess. Two siblings then read the same sentence and reach opposite conclusions, and the first anyone hears of it is a letter.
It is fixable, and it is fixable cheaply, but only before the document is signed. That is what the position paper stage is for.
Ask for a first conversation
Ninety minutes with a partner, at no charge. Tell us roughly what the situation is and we will tell you honestly whether you need a lawyer at all.
- Office
- 200 Clarendon Street, Floor 41
Boston, Massachusetts 02116 - Telephone
- +1 617 555 0148
- office@hallowayfinch.com
- Hours
- Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm
Evening appointments by arrangement