At Kohnen & Patton, we serve as trusted legal advisors to high-net-worth families and their businesses. Our multidisciplinary team guides families through the complex legal, regulatory, tax, and operational issues that accompany the formation, management, and evolution of family offices.

Our Approach

Strategic Counsel for Complex Family Structures

Family offices offer families of wealth the ability to consolidate the management of their business, personal, charitable, and investment affairs. The scale and sophistication of these structures often require integrated legal counsel spanning multiple disciplines. At Kohnen & Patton, we offer comprehensive legal services across the entire lifecycle of a family office—from initial structuring to succession planning and beyond.

Whether advising a newly formed virtual family office or a multigenerational private trust company, we provide thoughtful, tailored legal solutions that reflect the family’s long-term objectives. We often act as private general counsel, offering strategic oversight and coordinating across all areas of law that touch the family office.

Tailored, Long-Term Partnerships

Our work begins by understanding each family’s values, priorities, and legacy vision. We assist in drafting family constitutions and governance frameworks that promote transparency and cohesion across generations. Where appropriate, we facilitate discussions around decision-making authority, compensation structures, and generational transition planning to ensure continuity and stability.

We also help families decide which services are best handled in-house versus outsourced—be it investment management, concierge services, or income tax reporting—and coordinate among their existing advisors to provide a unified strategy.

What Sets Kohnen & Patton Apart

We combine elite legal acumen with personal attention, discretion, and sensitivity to family dynamics. Our collaborative model ensures that our clients benefit from the full resources of the firm while maintaining a single point of contact for legal guidance. The result is a seamless, efficient experience built on trust, confidentiality, and decades of experience serving clients whose needs transcend traditional legal categories.

Protecting and Preserving Generational Wealth

Kohnen & Patton’s family office lawyers are committed to helping families preserve wealth, protect values, and promote long-term financial and personal security. Our role is not only to solve problems, but to anticipate them—offering proactive advice that allows our clients to navigate complexity with clarity and confidence.

Services Include

  • Family Office Formation & Structuring
    Including tax-efficient entity formation, operating agreements, and governance policies, with attention to deductibility of expenditures under current tax law.
  • Tax Planning & Compliance
    Federal, state, and international tax advice, including estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax strategies.
  • Trust & Estate Planning
    Sophisticated wealth transfer techniques, trust administration, fiduciary accounting, and succession planning for family members and closely held businesses.
  • Investment & Transactional Counsel
    Structuring and negotiating pooled investment vehicles, private equity and hedge fund allocations, stand-alone investments, and family partnerships.
  • Philanthropy & Impact Structuring
    Establishment and governance of private foundations, donor-advised funds, and other charitable entities to advance legacy planning and impact goals.
  • Regulatory & Compliance Matters
    Providing guidance on compliance with U.S. securities laws, including navigating family office exemptions, reporting